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E/iifiMMIi; MY TIHIE Al^CS'IRlECAK TIKAiCnT' S:Ii"r'.iLK']rT, 



HANNAH MORE; 



OR, 



LIFE IN HALL AND COTTAGE. 



BY MRS. HELEN C. KNIGHT. 




AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 

150 NASSAU-STREET, NEW YORK. 



PR360S 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862, by the American 
Tract Society, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States 
for the Southern District of New York. 



APR 18 n2ii 

uay and ? 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 
Early days 9 

CHAPTER 11. 
Introduction to London Society - 22 

CHAPTER III. 
A peep at the Blues 34 

CHAPTER IV. 
Literary Blossomings 43 

CHAPTER V. 
Death of Garrick— Theatrical Amusements - 59 

CHAPTER VI. 
Correspondence 69 

CHAPTER VII. 
Cowslip Green 87 

CHAPTER VIII. 
First Fruits 101 

CHAPTER IX. 
Labors among the Poor— Sunday-schools 115 

CHAPTER X. 
Newton in Sorrow— Mendip Feast 137 

CHAPTER XI. 
Will Chip and his Brethi'en - - . . 151 



4 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XII. 
Trials and Opposition - 16^ 

CHAPTER XIII. 
BarieyWood 190 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Falling Leaves 200 

CHAPTER XV. 
A Golden Harvest 230 

CHAPTER XVI. 
Passing Away - 256 

Conclusion -•• 27G 



PREFACE 



It has been written, that "the world's 
wealth is its original men ; by these and their 
works it is a world and not a waste : the mem- 
ory and record of what men it bore — this is 
the sum of its strength, its 'sacred property' 
for ever, whereby it upholds itself and steers 
forward, better or worse, through the yet un- 
discovered deep of time. 

''Science itself, is it not, under one of its 
most interesting aspects, biography? Is it not 
the record of the worh, which an original man, 
still named by us or not named, was blessed 
by the heavens to do ?" 

May it not also be said that the wealth of 
the church is her godly men, her holy women, 
ber ransomed little ones? Are not the record 
and memory of their self-denial and suffering, 
theii patient waiting and cheerful courage, 
their faith and love, her richest legacies and 



6 PREFACE. 

dearest treasures ? By these is the world an 
Eden, and not a waste ; by these is the church 
llie true vine, and not a withered branch j a 
living epistle, and not a dead letter : the meni- 
Diy and record of what Christian men and 
ivomen it bore — this is the sum of her strength, 
her ''sacred property" for ever. 

Christianity itself, is it not, under one of 
its most interesting aspects, biography ? Is it 
not the record of the work of the G od-man ? 
Have not its doctrines been unfolded by the 
lives and labors of its eminent disciples ? 

In this view, what meaning is there in the 
Christian life, whenever bearing "precious 
fruit,'' within the cottage or the hall, in the 
little child patiently bearing its weary load for 
Christ's sake, or in those holy and devout ones 
whose faith subdued kingdoms, wrought right- 
eousness, and who, having obtained a good re- 
port, have gone to receive their great recom- 
pense of reward. 

Herein is the beauty and excellence of the 
life of this eminent servant of God, Hannah 

^lORE. 

Though among the household memories, if 
not among the nursery-rhymes of many in mid- 
dle life, she is less known to a great multitude 



PREFACE. 7 

of the young, who are just entering upon the 
duties, the responsibilities, and conflicts of the 
Christian life, and for them is this sketch pre- 
pared. If there is a tendency in the church, 
as some fear, to consult worldly advantages , 
more than Christ's requirements; to be con- 
tent with a weak faith and feeble hopes, instead 
of the warm, large, generous love which in- 
spired the apostles of old, and eminent saints 
of later time ; to rest satisfied with only a name 
to live, instead of bringing forth fruits meet for 
repentance — let us turn back and study the 
character of those whose lips and lives most 
eloquently expressed the holy gospel they pro- 
fessed. Let us inquire what doctrines they 
believed, what principles they adopted, what 
duties they discharged, what labors they un- 
dertook, what amusements they forsook; in a 
word,- let us seek to find out their apprehen- 
sion of Bible truth, and how also the Bible 
shaped their views, moulded their character, 
and fitted them for usefulness. Hannah More 
presents one of the most complete models of 
Christian character; her life is a beautiful de- 
velopment of that healthy, vigorous, life-giv- 
ing, and heart- warming piety, which springs 
from the distinguishing doctrines of the Bible 



8 PREFACE. 

cordially believed and faithfully acted upon. 
Let every American woman study her biogra- 
phy. It is a legacy left for our benefit, a por- 
trait for our contemplation, an example to im- 
itate, a token for encouragement and hope, an 
t^arnest of that fulness in Christ Jesus, if we 
''do show the same dilio;ence to the full assur- 
ance of hope unto the end, that we be not 
slothful, but followers of them who through 
faith and patience inherit the promises." 

This volume, revised from an earlier edi- 
tion, is now placed among the publications of 
the American Tract Society. 
May its mission be blest. 

H. C. K. 



A 

NEW MEMOIR OF HANNAH MORE. 



CHAPTER I. 

EARLY DAYS. 

Let us visit the retired hamlet of Fish- 
ponds; it is in the parish of Stapleton, four 
miles from Bristol, and possesses all the quiet 
and homely comfort of rural life in England. 
Among the humble homes of the hamlet stands 
that of Mr. Jacob More, a man of piety and 
learning, who, though bred to larger expecta- 
tions and an ampler inheritance, is the faithful 
and contented master of the parish school, the 
happy husband of his excellent Mary, the 
proud father of five little girls, and the thank- 
ful proprietor of valuable stock in domestic 
peace and enjoyment. He is a devoted mem- 
ber of the English church, and a loyal subject 
of "good King George.'' The overcast fortunes 
of his early days, and the mansion and estates 
of Wenhaston wrested from him in a suit at 



10 HANNAH MORE. 

law, are well-nigh forgotten amid the manifold 
cares and busy interests of family rearing. 
Besides leading a flock of village urchins to 
the green pastures of knowledge, he guides his 
five little girls by the same friendly crook; 
and in their training he beholds the buds and 
blossoms, as in their lives he hopes to realize 
the fruit of his professional skill and parental 
fidelity. 

"With more enlarged views of female edu- 
cation than were common a hundred years 
ago, good Mr. More, though not without a cer- 
tain horror for a learned lady, determined to 
strengthen the minds of his daughters by a 
thorough course of study and well-selected 
reading : his object was to fit them for useful- 
ness in whatever path the providence of God 
might direct their steps. 

The home influences which surrounded this 
band of sisters were the purest and best — not 
harassed by poverty or enervated by luxury, 
but surrounded by the steady yet gentle pres- 
sure of ever doi7ig, they were early taught tlie 
wonderful power of the ''diligent hand;*' away 
from fevered excitements and fashionable fol- 
lies, they only knew life through the simple 
habits of their parents, enriched and beautified 



EARLY DATS. 11 

by tlie clear sense and devout spirit of their 
mother, and by the classic tastes and well- 
stored mind of their father. 

As the sisters passed from infancy to child- 
hood, from childhood to womanhood, the daily 
discipline of reading and grammar, of Latin 
and mathematics, was diversified and relieved 
by household labors and rural exercises. 

To the studies which fell within Mr. More's 
own province, he wished to add that of the 
French language ; and for this purpose, when 
Mary, the eldest, was twelve, she went three 
times a week to Bristol to receive lessons from 
the most approved instructors, in order to fit 
her to become the teacher of her younger sis- 
ters. Through hot and cold, through wet and 
dry, with a resolution which ever afterwards 
was one of the most prominent traits in her 
character, Mary More trod unweariedly her 
solitary four miles' walk, studying with un- 
flinching earnestness until she became a thor- 
ough mistress of the French, and spoke it with 
the fluency and elegance of a native. 

While the eldest daughter was thus toiling, 
Elizabeth, next her in age, was busy by her 
mother's side plying the needle, turning the 
wheel, or adding to family comfort through 



12 HANNAH MORE. 

tli8 thousand unseen channels of simple duties 
and little kindnesses. 

Then came Sarah, brimful of wit and hu- 
mor, whose quaint sayings and lively answers 
were the delight of her companions, and often 
provoked a smile from the schoolmaster in his 
gravest and most thoughtful moods. 

Having lost a valuable portion of his library 
by his unhappy expulsion from the paternal 
estate, Mr. More was constrained to teach his- 
tory in the more animated style of conversa- 
tion and story ; and his own interest in Gre- 
cian sages and Roman heroes was revived and 
quickened by the bright eyes and earnest 
glance of his fourth little one, ever first on her 
father's knee, listening with a glowing face to 
the wonderful recitals which fell from his lips. 
While still regarded as "the little one," and 
long before she w^as thought worthy of the 
paternal teaching, the delighted parents were 
surprised to find her reading with intelligence 
and fluency, having slipped through the long 
apprenticeship of syllables and spelling they 
hardly knew when or how. 

She learned while others talked; a scrap 
of paper and an old pen are among her baby- 
house treasures; in rude characters she at 



EARLY DAYS. 13 

tempts to put down the tlioiiglits wliicli spring 
up abundantly witliin her little bosom. Before 
her father's door was the high-road leading to 
Bristol, with its manifold and far off wonders ; 
the child often sits and ponders whence it 
comes and whither it goes, eagerly watching 
the heavy carts or the pillion-equestrians as 
they occasionally pass and repass, each sug- 
gesting a new fancy or pleasing wonder. As 
she ponders, she writes. The little child of 
four years is a rhymer, perhaps a poet. Be- 
sides a poem, her fourth year has other mar- 
vels for expectant and loving kindred. The 
village curate awards her sixpence for cate- 
chism lessons well learned and perfectly recit- 
ed — her first earned sixpence. Such were the 
first laurels of Hannah, \\\^ fourth child of Mr. 
More, born in the year 1745. 

Her father, delighted with the dawning 
abilities of the child, soon began to teach her 
his favorite Latin. Amazed at her rapid prog- 
ress, he abandoned the work, lest Hannah 
should grow up a pedant ; this however he 
willingly resumed not long after at the en- 
treaty of the child, seconded by the persua- 
sions of her mother. The little Hannah was 
henceforth permitted to read, study, and write, 



14 HANNAH MORE. 

as her fancy led ; poems, essays, and stories 
issued from her pen, and were stored away to 
be read or recited to her sisters, whose sym- 
pathy encouraged her endeavors. 

Patty was the youngest of the flock, loving 
and joyous, never jealous of the opening pow- 
ers of her sister, for whom her admiration was 
only equalled by her affection. 

As the family grew up, its increasing wants 
outran its straitened means, when the elder 
sisters proposed to follow the profession of 
their father, and try the experiment of a new 
boarding-school in the neighboring city. 

Warm friends, who knew their worth, sec- 
onded the plan, and offered their patronage 
and influence. Among their patrons was Mrs. 
Gwatkin, a lady of worth and high position, 
who then little dreamed that, through the 
friendly aid she rendered to this band of 
teachers, her own name should be handed to 
generations yet to come. The family circle 
was broken up. Mary, Elizabeth, and Sarah 
left the paternal roof to try their fortunes in 
the great world : the school opened, scholars 
flocked to it, and the first year confirmed their 
hopes and encouraged farther efforts. With 
what solicitude and pride must the father have 



EARLY DATS. 15 

watched their progress in the same ordeal of 
daily struggles, in which he had already be- 
come a veteran ; and when at last, at the age 
of twelve, he suffered the little Hannah to 
escape from his nest and become a pupil in 
the now prosperous school, he gave the strong- 
est proof which a father could give of his con- 
fidence in the well-conducted enterprise. 

A world of interest opened upon the gifted 
girl in the wider sphere of study and' observa- 
tion, in the diversity of character, in the new 
friendships and associations, in the competi- 
tions and struggles of school-life in the city. 
She was not among strangers who, caring not, 
crowded her mind or cramped her heart; affec- 
tion still folded her in its bosom, defending 
her from harmful flatteries, yet rejoicing in her 
opening and maturing powers. Her progress 
was brilliant and rapid, reflecting honor upon 
the school, and attracting attention from some 
of the most cultivated minds in the city. Sir 
James Stonehouse, a friend and patron of her 
cisters. whose writings for the spiritual benefit 
of the sick have been extensively circulated 
by the Society for Promoting Christian Know- 
ledge, took every opportunity of cultivating 
the young girl's friendship, and while she was 



16 HANNAH MORE. 

yet a pupil predicted her distinguished ca- 
reer. 

Besides Sir James, Dr. Tucker, afterwards 
dean of Gloucestershire, Mr. Peach, a man of 
extensive reading and fine taste, and Fergu- 
son the astronomer, then lecturing at Bristol, 
sought her society with delight, and were reck- 
oned among her warmest friends. So great, 
at that early period, were the charms of her 
conversation, that Dr. Woodward, her physi- 
cian, a man of some eminence in his time, is 
said one day altogether to have forgotten his 
professional duty in listening, until half way 
down stairs, suddenly recollecting himself, he 
exclaimed, "Bless me, I forgot to ask the girl 
how she was," and hastened back to amend 
the delinquency. 

Plannah's literary tastes showed themselves 
in her pastimes as well as in her studies, for 
we learn that a favorite diversion was the 
gathering of small parties, where the talk was 
wholly sustained in the language of Shak- 
speare, and "it was surprising," she said ia 
after-days, "how well the conversation was 
kept up." It must be remembered that chil- 
dren's literature had then no existence ; the 
Parent's Assistant, Sanford and Mcrton, Harry 



EARLY DAYS. IT 

and Lucy, books wliicli a few years afterwards 
delighted the young, had not then appeared. 
Children read then if" they read at all books 
which their elders read and? loved, and Shak- 
speare, it seems, was among the select reading 
of young Hannah More. This early apprecia- 
tion of his writings imparted to one of her first 
journeys a zest and enjoyment which few at 
her age could have been supposed to feel. 

In company with friends she visited Strat- 
ford-upon-the-xVvon, the birthplace of the im- 
mortal poet, and brought away a branch of the 
famous mulberry growing in his garden ; this 
she had wrought into sugar-tongs and present- 
ed to Mrs. Gwatkin, with the verse, 

"I kissed the sacred slirine where Shakspeare lay, 
And bore this relic of my bard away : 
Where shall I place it, Phoebus ? Where 'tis due, 
Apollo answered : and I send it — youP 

At seventeen a small work issued from her 
pen, entitled, "The Search after Happiness,'' 
a pastoral drama, which, with an ever-grateful 
sense of Mrs. Gwatkin's kindness to her fam- 
ily, she dedicated to that lady. 

Unexpected success crowned the efforts of 
the sisters: their faithful and judicious man- 
agement of the home department, together 



18 HANNAH MORE. 

with the superior course of instruction given 
in the school, gave it a deservedly high posi- 
tion, and attracted pupils from the most dis- 
tant parts of the kingdom. The sisters deter- 
mined to enlarge their boundaries, and for this 
purpose they built a large and commodious 
house in Park-street, where the number of 
applicants still outrun their accommodations. 

Nor were they unmindful of the comfort 
and increasing infirmities of their now only 
remaining parent. Mr. More, bereft of his 
family, was moved to a pleasant house in the 
city, where he passed a green old age in the 
enjoyment of his garden, his library, his 
friends, and above all, the daily visits of his 
five excellent daughters. 

Having completed her studies, Hannah re- 
mained in the school as teacher. Beloved and 
respected in no common degree, the younger 
sisters were often invited to visit the homes of 
their pupils. They were at this time intimate 
with two young ladies, who frequently carried 
them to Belmont, the residence of a cousin, 
Edward Turner, Esq., six miles from Bristol. 
Hannah's fine taste and cultivated mind made 
a strong impression on iho host, who delighted 
to consult her about his projected improve- 



EARLY DAYS. 19 

ments, and followed licr snggestio^as in many 
of the embellishments made on his estate. 

It is no surprise that she won his affection, 
and for a time at least wooed him from his love 
of single life. Though twice her age — Hannah 
was now nearly twenty-two — he sought her 
hand ; the suit was favorably regarded, and 
the bridal preliminaries were completed, when 
the current of true love, not always smoothly 
running, drifted them apart; nor docs it ap- 
pear that Hannah ever afterwards freighted 
her bark on the same uncertain element. 

Mr. Turner never ceased to regard her 
with respect and interest, and his first toast 
every day, whether alone or in society, was 
''Hannah More." In after-years, their long- 
suspended intercourse was renewed, and con- 
tinued until his death, when he bequeathed to 
her a thousand pounds. There are no regrets 
to bestow over this severed tie, for Mrs. Tur- 
ner might have deprived the world of the 
brilliant career and valuable services of Miss 
Hannah More. She afterwards received an 
offer of marriage from Dr. Langhorne, vicar 
of Blagdon, a man of lively wit and cultivated 
intellect, with whom she became acquainted 
while in quest of health and strength on the 



20 HANNAH MORE. 

coast of Somersetshire. Behold her on the 
beach, sometimes on a pillion behind her ser- 
vant, sometimes in company with the doctor, 
sometimes surrounded by a group of admiring 
friends, drawn thither by the charms of her 
brilliant and animated conversation. Though 
a rejected suitor, the doctor maintained a po- 
etical and literary correspondence with the 
lady until his death, which took place in the 
prime of a manhood blighted by irregularities 
and misfortune. 

Thus far have we caught passing glimpses 
of Hannah More in the dear seclusion of her 
early home, the busy retreat of her sisters' 
school, and the agreeable circle of Bristol so- 
ciety, where her simple manners, her good 
sense, and the unaffected friendliness of her 
heart, gave an added lustre to those brilliant 
powers and that ready wit which afterwards 
made her a welcome and honored guest in the 
elegant and refined circles of the metropolis. 
How much is there in her early life of which 
the few and scanty records that remain fail to 
inform us ! How many an earnest mother 
would rend the veil which conceals her child- 
hood, to learn the secret springs of that Chris- 
tian nurture which enabled her to pass unse- 



EARLY DAYS. 21 

cliiced and unscathed through the trying ordeal 
of folly, of fashion, and of fame which awaited 
her. The glitter of fashionable life never 
seems to have dimmed the clearness of her 
moral vision, or prevented her from making a 
rational estimate of its maxims, habits, and 
pursuits ; there ever accompanied her an integ- 
rity of moral consciousness, a hidden strength, 
which, stronger than breastplate or shield, de- 
fended her from the corrupting influence ol 
flattery, and enabled her to maintain that sin- 
gleness and purity of character, and to foster 
those religious convictions which formed the 
beauty and excellence of her riper years. 



22 HANNAH MORE. 



CHAPTER ir. 

INTRODUCTION TO LONDON SOCIETY. 

Brilliant minds centre round this period 
of English literature. The splendid diction of 
Burke had kindled a fresh glow around "The 
Sublime and Beautiful ;" the Deserted Tillage 
was peopled with admirers ; Johnson enriched 
the world of letters from the storehouse of his 
affluent mind ; Sir Joshua Reynolds was in the 
zenith of his popularity ; and Garrick ruled the 
stage. 

London society was rife with genius, wit, 
and learning; the famous Blue Stocking Club 
was then in its glory, and its accomplished 
patrons figured in the most elegant and refined 
circles of that day. This gathering, which has 
unwittingly given a name of implied reproach 
to women of literary tastes and pursuits, was 
composed of persons distinguished for wit and 
talent, who met at each other's houses to enjoy 
the charm of each other's society, without cere- 
mony or supper, and without the interloping aid 
of cards or dancing, as we learn from a little 



LONDON SOCIETY.- 23 

poem entitled the Bas Bleu, wrilteu by Han- 
nah More a few years after. 

"Long was societj^ o'errun 
By Whist, that desecrating Hun ; 
Long did Quadrille despotic sit, 
That Vandal of colloquial wit, 
And conversation's setting light 
Lay deep obscured in Gothic night : 
At length the mental shades decline ; 
Colloquial wit begins to shine ; 
Genius prevails, and conversation 
Emerges into reformation." 

Among the admired women of this circle 
ranks Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu, who acquired 
much celebrity as the author of an ''Essay on 
the Genius of Shakspeare," published in 1769. 
She became better known in this country by 
a volume of delightful letters, which charmed 
the reading world fifty years ago. Beautiful 
in youth, and left in possession of an ample 
fortune at the death of her husband, she re- 
tained until the latest period of life a grace 
of person and manner, which made her splen- 
did mansion at Berkeley-square a centre of the 
most polished society in the metropolis. By 
her side sits Elizabeth Carter, accounted one of 
the most learned ladies of her time, the long- 
loved and intimate companion of Mrs. Mon- 



24 HANNAH MORE. 

tagu. At twenty-nine, Dr. Johnson, in a fit of 
unusual gallantry, composed a Greek epigram 
to her praise; and she was almost the only 
lady, through long years of intercourse, whom 
lie treated with uniform attention and civility. 
For the encouragement of the young, who are 
more ready to question their abilities than to 
exercise them, and for the benefit of teachers 
impatient of progress which they are not faith- 
ful enough to secure, let it be added that Mr. 
Carter, in early days Elizabeth's instructor, 
became so disgusted by the apparent stupidity 
of his daughter, that he abandoned the task of 
teaching her ; while she, with a resolution which 
nothing could quench, continued her studies 
until she became one of the most thorough 
scholars of her sex. Dr. Johnson, speaking 
of a celebrated Greek scholar, said he under- 
stood Greek better than anybody else, except 
Elizabeth Carter; and the fishermen of Deal, 
her native place, respectfully regarded her as 
the almanac maher, that being the highest con- 
ception they could form of the abilities and 
power of their distinguished townswoman. Iler 
biography may be found in some of our older 
libraries, together with "Mrs. Chapone's Let- 
ters to Young Ladies," a famous book in its 



LONDON SOCIETY. 25 

day, whose wise counsel and judicious guidance 
no young lady could presume to be without. 

Here is Mrs. Chapone, one of the Bluo 
Stockings, with another no less distinguished. 
Hon. Frances Boscawen, widow of Admiral 
l^oscawen, a warm and appreciating friend of 
literary worth and rising genius. With her 
comes Mrs. Yesey, to whom, in pleasing re- 
membrance of the delightful gatherings at her 
house, Miss More dedicated her Bas Bleu poem, 

"Yesey, of sense the judge and friend." 

Brilliant as these circles were, they were 
yet to receive a delightful accession in the gift- 
ed woman, who, in company with her sister 
Sarah, left Bristol on a visit to London in the 
winter of 1773, and began, as she says, for 
the first time, to "know something of the hur- 
ry, bustle, dissipation, and nonsensical flutter 
of town life." 

Her reputation had already preceded her, 
and Hannah More is soon a guest at the table 
of Sir Joshua Eeynolds, whose handsome 
nstablishment in Leicester-fields was the resort 
of the gay and learned. Hosts of friends sur- 
rounded his board, drawn thither as much by 
his genial hospitality as by the world-wide 



S3 HANNAH MORE. 

reputation of his genius, and the monunienta 
of his industry and art. His sister Frances, 
Avilh whom Hannah was soon intimate, presid- 
ed over his house. Miss Eeynolds, if we may 
credit a contemporary critic, seems not to have 
been a very skilful housewife, or to have serv- 
ed her brother's table with an especial refer- 
ence to order or arrangement, there often being 
a deficiency of knives, forks, plates, and glass- 
es ; yet friends long loved the memory of those 
social gatherings, which, after the sun had set 
that gave them w^armth, no one ever attempted 
to revive or imitate. 

We next follow her to Hampton Court, the 
princely domain of Cardinal Woolsey, sixteen 
miles from London. Here were royal halls, 
with their superb pictures and ancient tapes- 
try ; the beauties of King William's court, 
looking beautiful still through the stiff and 
antique drapery of elder times ; and the rec- 
ords of royal industry, tapestry wrought by 
Queen Mary's hands, when, surrounded by her 
maidens, " the needle plied its busy task." 

Not far off w^re the "immortal shades" 
ol Twickenham, the abode of Pope, one of her 
favorite authors, only a pleasant walk's dis- 
tance from Hampton Court. The curious do 



LONDON SOCIETY. 27 

main of the poet, at that time in possession of 
Sir William Stanhope, had suffered few out- 
ward changes; the rooms had been stripped 
of every memento of its former occupant : his 
bust, statue, pictures, and librar}^, many of 
them gifts of distinguished men, and tributes 
to his genius, had been scattered far and wide 
among his friends; but the house remained, 
with its curiously wrought arcades, columns, 
and porticos. The garden, shrubbery, and 
grotto were also there, where Addison, Swift, 
Parnel, and Bolingbroke "read, wrought, and 
wrote," far away from the busy and distracting 
scenes of London life; nor could she leave 
without plucking a sprig of laurel from the 
garden, and stealing two stones from the grot- 
to, in memory of the great departed : neither 
did she leave Twickenham without visiting his 
tomb in the village churchyard bearing the 
inscription, " One who would not be buried in 
Westminster Abbey,'- he, as Hannah wittily 
suggested, probably choosing to be the first 
ghost in Twickenham rather than an inferior 
one at Westminster. 

On her return to Hampton, she went to the 
country house of David Garrick, beautifully 
situated on the Thames, then undergoing re- 



28 HANNAH MORE. 

pairs. She wandered over the grounds, and 
stole into liis temple, a quiet garden retreat, 
containing, among other things, a chair curi- 
ously wrought from the tree which grew in 
Shakspeare's garden. 

''I sat in it," wrote she to Mrs. Gwatkin, 
''but caught no inspiration. What drew my 
attention most was a splendid statue of that 
great and original man, in an attitude strik- 
ingly pensive ; his limbs strongly muscular, his 
countenance expressive of some vast concep- 
tion, and his whole form seeming the bigger 
from some immense idea, with which you sup- 
pose his imagination pregnant. The statue 
cost £500.'^ 

The drama was then a favorite with Han- 
nah More : her first article was dramatic, and 
she had already sketched some of the thrilling 
scenes in Hebrew history, which afterwards 
appeared in the form of ''Sacred Dramas.'^ 
No wonder that Garrick was at once an object 
of curiosity and interest. It was in the char- 
acter of King Lear that she first beheld his 
remarkable powers, a graphic description of 
which in a letter to a mutual friend inspired 
him with the strongest desire to see and know 
her. Though somewhat past the prime of life, 



LONDON SOCIETY. 29 

having nearly reached his sixtieth year, Gar- 
rick's frame still retained the flexibility and 
vigor of earlier days. With genius and re- 
finement, "the finest man in the world for 
sprightly conversation," as Johnson tells us, 
his house, adorned by Eva Maria his beau- 
tiful and accomplished wife, was a centre of 
attraction to the literary circles of that pe- 
riod. 

An introduction soon followed: the inter- 
view gave mutual pleasure, and the founda- 
tions of a warm and cordial intimacy were 
laid, which lasted until his death. Garrick 
immediately introduced his new friend into the 
elegant circle over which Mrs. Montagu pre- 
sided: she soon became a frequent guest at 
Berkeley-square, and a favorite of the choice 
spirits of that day. 

But Hannah longed to behold the wonder 
of the age, ''Irene Johnson!" "Dictionary 
Johnson!" " Idler, Rambler Johnson !" Call- 
ing one day at Sir Joshua's, she learned ho 
was within : her friends tried to modera*te her 
eagerness by hinting at the rudeness of his 
manners. On entering the room, she was 
agreeably surprised by a cordial greeting in a 
verse of her own poetry and a condescending 



so HANNAH MORE. 

advance to receive her. Sir Joslina's nmcaw 
was jauntily perched o-n his arm, a favorite of 
the doctor for its appreciating estimate of 
3^ouBg Northcote's work — a portrait of one of 
the servants, whom the bird mistaking for tbe 
original, against which it harbored a grudge, 
flew at it with the greatest fury, and nearly 
picked the canvas to pieces. 

Hannah was favorably impressed, and not 
long afterwards, in company with Miss Eey- 
nolds, she paid Dr. Johnson a visit at his own 
lodgings. On entering his little parlor, they 
found it occupied by a pale, shrunken old 
lady, dressed in scarlet, her head covered by 
a black lace hood with stiff projecting wings. 
Jumping into a great armchair, which she nat- 
urally concluded could be nobody's accustomed 
seat but the doctor's, Hannah playfully invok- 
ed the inspiration of his genius. 

Their hostess was Miss Anna Williams, the 
blind poetess, w^ho for forty years was shel- 
tered beneath the doctor's roof. The daughter 
of an early friend, on coming up to London, 
before his wife's death, for the purpose of hav- 
ing an operation performed upon her eyes, she 
was invited to his house. Failing in the ex- 
pected aid. Dr. Johnson offered her a liome. 



LONDON SOCIETY. 31 

Cler destitute situation enlisted the sympathy 
of his friends, and she received from them 
substantial support. Gar rick gave her i ben- 
efit, Mrs. Montagu allowed her ten pounds a 
year, and Miss Carter electioneered a long 
subscription for her poems. 

The heavy tread of the host is at the door : 
he enters : behold his burly and unwieldy 
body, with face disfigured by scrofula, and 
head surmounted by a large, bushy, grayish 
wig, well singed, or perhaps quite crisp in 
front— a fright to the respectable company of 
wigs with which it daily associates: its mas- 
ter's eyes are both weak and near-sighted, and 
in his absorbing interest for a favorite author, 
he often brings them in dangerous proximity 
to the light, quite regardless of consequences. 
On his dining with distinguished guests at Lei- 
cester-fields, Sir Joshua's butler used to take 
the liberty of replacing the old wig with one 
more suitable to the dignity of the occasion. 

He is dressed in plain brown clothes, black 
worsted stockings, and silver knee-buckles. 
His rolling gait, with the odd and convulsive 
twists of his unwieldy body, added to a harsh 
and imperious voice, were sufficiently disa- 
greeable to repulse the least fastidious. 



33 HANNAH MORE. 

At the time of Hannah's introduction to 
him, he was past sixty-five, bearing the accu- 
mulated infirmities of age and disease, yet 
keenly alive as ever to the pleasures of con- 
versation and tea. No person probably en- 
joyed more the cup which ''cheers but not 
inebriates,*' or possessed a more appreciative 
sense of the qualities of Bohea. 

Come early or late, the tea-table was sure 
to be spread. By the friendly inspiration of 
the fragrant leaf, his morning was endured, 
his evenings solaced; and he could talk the 
twenty-four hours together without weariness 
or rest, if a considerate regard to the bed- 
time of his friends did not occasionally release 
them from his company. 

''I lie down," he onoe said, ''that my ac- 
quaintance may sleep ; for I lie down to endure 
oppressive misery, and soon rise again to pass 
the night in anxiety and pain." Poor John- 
son's bodily existence was a torture. 

As he enters the little parlor in Fleet- 
street, the callers are cordially received; he 
laughs heartily at Hannah, and disowns all 
special occupancy of the armchair in which she 
sits. 

Perhaps they discuss his "Journey to the 



LONDON SOCIETY. 83 

Hebrides,'' just published, a work investing 
the dryest subject with interest, and turning a 
most barren spot to profitable account, four 
thousand copies of the work having been sold 
the first week of its publication. 

On Hannah's return to Bristol, in 1774, 
her feelings became warmly enlisted for her 
favorite candidate in the Parliament election 
then going on, Hon. Edmund Burke, who made 
the friendship, and v/as a frequent guest of the 
Misses More. When his success at the polls 
became certain, the sisters presented him their 
congratulatory addresses, through a splendid 
cockade, composed of ''the sublime and beau- 
tiful" colors analyzed in his famous essay, 
twined with myrtle, decorated with silver tas- 
sels, and filled with appropriate mottoes. The 
box was handed him in a large party ; and 
being opened, the cockade was taken out amid 
the applauses of his friends and a general 
curiosity concerning the giver. Burke de- 
clared it could only be from the Park-street 
sisters. It was elevated to a conspicuous sit- 
uation in the committee-room, and graced his 
cap on the day of his triumph 



2* 



34 HANNAH MORE. 

CHAPTER III. 

A PEEP AT THE BLUES. 

The briglit world of intelleciual life autl 
social elegance into which Hannah More was 
suddenly and unexpectedly ushered, w^hile it 
brought her into the society of people whom it 
was a pleasure and a privilege to know, also 
brought her into contact with amusements and 
habits not only foreign to her tastes, but op- 
posed to her principles. In her free home 
letters, full of good sense and graphic descrip- 
tion, she opens a loophole into her heart and 
habits. 

The following was w^ritten during her sec- 
ond visit to London, in 177.5: 

'' Our visit was at Sir Joshua's, where we 
were received with all the friendship imagina- 
ble. I am going to-day to a great dinner; 
nothing can be conceived so absurd, extrava- 
gant, and fantastical, as the present mode of 
dressing the head. Simplicity and modesty 
are things so much exploded, that their very 
names ore no longer remembered. I have just 
escaped from one of the fashionable disfigur- 



A PEEP AT THE BLUES. 35 

ers; and tliougli I cliargecl him to dross me 
with the greatest simplicity, and to have only a 
very distant eye upon the fashion, just enough 
to avoid the pride of singularity, yet in spite 
of all these sage cautions, I absolutely blush 
at myself, and turn to the glass with as mach 
caution as a vain beauty just risen from the 
small-pox, which cannot be a more disfiguring 
disease than the present mode of dress. Of 
the one, the calamity may be greater in its 
consequences ; but of the other, it is more cor- 
rupt in its cause. 

'' We have been reading a treatise on the 
morality of Shakspeare. It is a happy and 
easy way of filling a book that the present 
race of authors have arrived at — that of criti- 
cizing the works of some eminent poet, with 
monstrous extracts and short remarks. It is 
a species of cookery that I begin to grow tired 
of : they cut up their authors in chops, and by 
adding a little crumbled bread of their own, 
and tossing it up a little, they present it as a 
fresh dish : you are to dine upon the poet ; the 
critic supplies the garnish, yet has the credit 
as well as tho profit of the whole entertain- 
ment.'' 



33 HANNAH MORE 

"London, 1775. 
*I had yesterday the pleasure of dimng in 
Ilill-street, Berkeley-square, at a certain Mrs. 
INFontagu's, a name not totally obscure. The 
party consisted of herself, Mrs. Carter, Dr. 
Johnson, Salander, and Matty, Mrs. Boscawen, 
Miss Eeynolds, and Sir Joshua — the idol of 
every company — some other persons of high 
rank and less wit, and your humble servant, a 
party that would not have disgraced the table 
of Lelius or of Atticus. I felt myself a worm, 
the more a worm for the consequence which 
Avas G:iven me bv mixinpr me with such a soci- 
ety; but as I told Mrs. Boscawen, and with 
great truth, I had an opportunity of making 
an experiment of my heart, by which I learned 
that I was not envious, for I certainly did not 
repine at being the meanest person in com- 
pany. 

''Mrs. Montagu received me with the most 
encouraging kindness ; she is not only the fin- 
est genius, but the finest lady I ever saw. She 
lives in the highest style of magnificence ; her 
apartments and table are in the most splendid 
taite : but what baubles are these when speak- 
of a Montagu! Her form — for she has no 
body — is delicate even to fragility; her coun- 



A PEEP AT THE BLUES. 37 

tenancc the most animated in the world; the 
sprightly vivacity of fifteen with the judgment 
and experience of a Kestor. But I fear she is 
hastening to decay very fast. Her spirits are 
so active that they must socn wear out the 
little frail receptacle that holds them. Mrs, 
Carter has in her person a great deal of what 
the gentlemen mean when they say such a one 
is a ' poetical lady.' However, independently 
of her great talents and learning, I like her 
much : she has affability, kindness, and good- 
ness, and I honor her heart even more than 
her talents. But I do not like one of them 
better than Mrs. Boscawen: she is at once po- 
lite, learned, judicious, and humble ; and Mrs. 
Palk tells me her letters are not thought infe- 
rior to Mrs. Montagu's. She regretted — so did 
I — that so many suns could not possibly shine 
at one time: but we are to have a smaller 
party, where from fewer luminaries there may 
emanate a clearer, steadier, and more benefi- 
cial light. Dr. Johnson asked me how I liked 
the new tragedy of Braganze. I was afraid to 
speak before company : however, as I thought 
it a less evil to dissent from the opinion of a 
fellow-creature than to tell a falsity, I ventured 
to give my sentiments, and was satisfied with 



E8 HANNAH MORE. 

Johnson's answering, 'You are right, mad- 
am.*" 

With sisterly pride, and in a tone of afFee- 
lionate eulogy, Sarah, who joined Hannah in 
her winter sojourning at London, thus writes, 
in her bright and lively style, to the sisterhood 
at Bristol : 

"London, 1775. 

"Tuesday evening we drank tea at Sir 
Joshua's, with Dr. Johnson. Hannah is cer- 
tainly a great favorite. She was placed next 
him, and they had the entire conversation to 
themselves. They were both in remarkably 
high spirits: it was certainly her lucky night. 
I never heard her say so many good things. 
The old genius was extremely jocular, and the 
young one very pleasant. You would have 
imagined we had been at some comedy, had 
you heard our peals of laughter. They indeed 
tried which could 'pepper the highest,' and it 
is not clear to me that the lexicographer was 
really the highest seasoner. Yesterday, Mr. 
Garrick called upon us; a volume of Pope lay 
upon the table : we asked him to read, and he 
went through the latter part of the 'Essay on 
Man.' He was exceedingly good-humored, 
and expressed liimself quite delighted with 



A PEEP AT THE BLUES. 39 

our eager desire for information; and when 
Le Lad satisfied our interrogatory, ' Xow, 
madam, ^yllat next?' He read several lines 
we had been disputing about, with regard to 
emphasis, in many different ways, before he 
decided which was right. He sat with us 
froPxi half-past twelve till three, reading and 
criticizing. We have just had a call from Mr. 
Burke." 

"London, 1*775. 

" 'Bear me, some god, quickly bear me hence, 
To wholesome solitude, the nurse of — ' 

* Sense,' I was going to add, in the words of 
Pope, till I recollected that pence had a more 
appropriate meaning, and was as good a rhyme. 
This apostrophe broke from me," writes Han- 
nah, "on coming from the opera, the first I ever 
did, the last, I trust, I ever shall go to. For 
what purpose has the Lord of the universe 
made his creature man with a comprehensive 
mind ? why make him a little lower than the 
angels ? why give him the faculty of thinking, 
the powers of wit and memory, and to crown 
all, an immortal and never-dying spirit? Wliy 
all this wondrous waste, this prodigality of 
bounty, if the mere animal senses of sight and 
hearing — by which he is not distinguished from 



40 HANNAH MORE. 

the brutes that perish — would have answered 
the end as well? and yet I find that the same 
jipople are seen at the opera every night, an 
amusement written in a language the greater 
part of them do not understand, and performed 
by such a set of beings. But the man 

' Who bade the reign commence 
Of rescued nature and reviving sense/ 

sat at my elbow, and reconciled me to my sit- 
uation, not by his approbation, but his pres- 
ence. Going to the opera, like getting drunk, 
is a sin that carries its own punishment with 
it, and that a very severe one. Thank my 
dear Dr. Stonehouse for his kind and season- 
able admonitions on my last Sunday's engage- 
ment at Mrs. Montagu's. Conscience had done 
its office before ; nay, was busy at the time ; 
and if it did not dash the cup of pleasure to 
the ground, infused at least a tincture of worm- 
w^ood into it. I did think of the alarming call, 
* What doest thou here, Elijah?' and I thought' 
of it to-night at the opera." ' 

" Sunday night, 9 o'clock. 

"Perhaps you will say I ought to have 
thonght of it again to-day, when I tell you I 
have dined abroad ; but it is a day I reflect od 



A PEEP AT THE BLUES. 41 

without those uneasy sensations one has when 
one is conscious it has been spent in trifliDg 
company. I have been at Mrs. Boscawen's. 
Mrs. Montagu, Mrs. Carter, Mrs. Chapone, and 
myself only were admitted. We spent the 
time, not as wits, but as reasonable creatures j 
better characters, I trow. The conversation 
was sprightly, but serious. I have not enjoyed 
an afternoon so much since I have been in 
town. There was much sterling sense, and 
they are all ladies of high character for piety, 
of which, however, I do not think their visit- 
ing on Sunday any proof; for though their con- 
versation is edifying, the example is bad. 

"The more I see of the 'honored, famed, 
and great,' the more I see of the littleness, the 
unsatisfactoriness of all created good, and that 
no earthly pleasure can fill up the wants of 
the immortal principle within. One need go 
no farther than the company I have just left, 
to be convinced that 'pain is for man,' and 
that fortune, talents, and science, are no ex- 
emption from the universal lot. Mrs. Mon- 
tagu, eminently distinguished for wit and 
virtue, ' the wisest where all are w^ise,' is has- 
tening to insensible decay by a slow but sure 
hectic. Mrs. Chapone has experienc^>i the 



42 HANNAH MORE. 

severest reverses of fortune; and Mrs. Bosca- 
wen's life has been a continued series of afflic- 
tions, that may almost bear a parallel witli 
those of the righteous man of Uz. Tell me, 
then, what is it to be wise? This, you will 
say, is exhibiting the unfavorable side of the 
picture of humanity; but it is the right side, 
the side that shows the likeness.'^ 



LITEKARY BLOSSOMINGS. iS 



CHAPTER lY. 

LITERARY BLOSSOMINGS. 

While Miss More was at home in the win- 
ter of 1775, she one day said to her sisters, 
''I have been so fed with praise, I think I will 
venture to try what my real value is, by writ- 
ing a slight poem.'' 

Her social position was much changed since 
the Pastoral Drama issued from her pen at 
the desk of the noisy school-room, beyond 
which her fame and influence were but just 
extending. 

Within a fortnight two poems were com- 
pleted, ''Sir Eldred of the Bower," and ''The 
Bleeding Rock." These, on her return to Lon- 
don, she presented to a well-known publisher, 
Cad ell, who offered her forty guineas, promis- 
ing at the same time, could she discover what 
Goldsmith received for his "Deserted Village," 
to increase the sum to that amount. 

Of this flattering award of pounds and 
pence, the "Deserted Village" has now no 
right to feel envious, for it has a perpetual 



44 HANNAH MORE. 

inlieritance in our hearts, while '' Sir Eldred,'^ 
after a brief patronage from the great men of 
his day, has passed into obscurity an I neg- 
lect. 

Miss Sally More, who accompanied Han- 
nah to London, writes home the gratifying 
news: ''From Miss Reynolds w^e learn that 
Sir Eldred is the theme of conversation in all 
the polite circles, and that the beauteous Ber- 
tha has kindled a flame in the cold heart of 
Johnson, who declares that her parent has but 
one fault, which is, suffering herself to graze 
upon the barren rocks of Bristol, while the 
rich pastures of London are guarded by no 
fence which could exclude her from them." 

In another letter she adds, "If a wedding 
should take place before our return, do n't be 
surprised — between the mother of Sir Eldred 
and the father of Irene; nay, Mrs. Montagu 
says, if tender w^ords are the precursors of 
connubial engagements, we may expect great 
things; for it is nothing but 'child,' 'a little 
fool,' ' love,' and ' dearest.' After much criti- 
cal discourse, he turns round to me, and w'th 
one of his most amiable looks, which must be 
seen to form the least idea of, he says, 'I have 
heard you are engaged in the useful and hon- 



LITERARY BLOSSOMINGS. 45 

orable occupation of teaching young ladies;^ 
upon wliicli, witli all the ease, familiarity, and 
confideuce we should have done had only our 
dear Dr. Stonehouse been present, we entered 
upon the history of our birth, parentage, and 
education, showing how we were born with 
more desires than guineas, and how as years 
increased our appetites, the cupboard at length 
began to grow too small for them, and how 
with a bottle of water, a bed and a blanket, 
we set out to seek our fortunes; and how we 
found a great house with nothing in it ; and 
how it was like to remain so, till, looking into 
our knowledge-boxes, we happened to find a 
little learning a very good thing when land is 
gone ; and so at last, by giving a little of this 
to those who had less, v\^e got a good store of 
gold in return ; but how, alas, we wanted the 
wit to keep it. M love you both,' cried the 
doctor. ' I love you all five. I never was at 
Bristol ; I will come on purpose to see you. 
What, five women live happily together ! I 
will come and see you. I have spent a happy 
evening; I am glad I came ; God for ever keep 
you ; you live to shame duchesses.' He took 
his leave with so much warmth and tenderness 
we were qtiite affected by his manner." 



48 II ANNA 1.1 MO]n:. 

The sisters visited Garrick at his pleasant 
rural home at Hampton, where he entertained 
them by reading a whimsical corresj ondence 
in prose and verse, carried on for mauj' years 
wilh the first geniuses of that age. 

' AYe see him now," says Patty, ''in his 
mellower light, when the world has been sha- 
ken off. He says he longs to enter into him- 
self, and to study the more important duties 
of life, v>hich he is determined upon doing. 
The next time we go, Hannah is to carry some 
of her writing ; she is to have a little table by 
herself, and to continue her studies, while he 
does the same.'' 

''I dined at the Adelphi yesterday," writes 
Hannah, in one of her letters home, revealing 
just what we want to know. ''It was a particu- 
lar occasion, an annual meeting, where nothing 
but men are usually asked. I, however, was of 
the party, and an agreeable day it was to me. 
I have seldom heard so much wit under the 
banner of so much decorum. Colman and Dr. 
Schomburg were of the party; the rest were 
cliiefly old doctors of divinity. At six I begged 
leave to come home, as I expected a polite as- 
sembly a little after seven. They came at sev- 
en. The dramatis persona? were Mrs. Eoscawen, 



LITERARY BLOSSOMINGS. i*l 

Mrs. Garrick, and Miss Eeynolds: my beaux 
were Dr. Jolinson, Dean Tucker, and last, but 
not least in our love, David Garrick. You 
know that wdierever Johnson is, the confine- 
ment to the tea-table is rather a durable situ- 
ation, and it V\'as an hour and a half before I 
got my enlargement. Garrick was the very 
soul of the company, and I never saw Johnson 
in such perfect good-humor. Sally knows that 
we have often heard that one can never prop- 
erly enjoy the company of these two unless 
they are together. There is great truth in this 
remark; for after the dean and Mrs. Bosca- 
wen — who were the only strangers — were 
withdrawn, and the rest stood up to go, John- 
son and Garrick began a close encounter, tell- 
ing old stories, 'e'en from their boyish days,' 
at Litchfield. We all stood around them for 
above an hour, laughing in defiance of every 
rule of Chesterfield. Johnson outstaid them 
all, and sat with me half an hour." 

At the repeated solicitations of the Gar- 
riolis. Miss More soon after took up her abode 
at the Adelphi, their town house, of which she 
humorously says, "The master and mistress 
are sensible, well-behaved people, and keep 
good compan}^; besides, they are fond of books, 



4S HANNAH MORE. 

and can read, and have a shelf full, which they 
lend me. Add to this, it is not a common lodg- 
ing-house : they are careful whom they take in, 
and will have no people of bad character, or 
who keep irregular hours. 

''I have a great deal of time at my own 
disposal, to read my own books and see my 
own friends ; and whenever I please, may join 
in the most elegant and polished society in the 
world. Our breakfasts are little literary soci- 
eties ; there is generally company at meals, as 
they think it saves time, by avoiding the ne- 
cessity of seeing people at other seasons. Mr. 
Garrick sets the highest value upon his time. 
I detest and avoid public places more than 
ever, and should make a miserably bad fine 
lady.'' 

Some idea may be formed of her industry, 
that among all this social attraction, she could 
find time to read four or five hours every day, 
and sometimes write ten. 

There is something heart- warming in the 
cordial and unfettered intercourse of Hannah 
and her London friends. The circle contained 
almost every element for social enjoyment: 
none indeed has been more famed for collo- 
quial ])owers, to which wit, learning, and re- 



LITERARY BLOSSOMINGS. 49 

finement, good-breeding, good-nature, and good- 
sense, made generous contributions. 

Miss More once said to Horace Walpole, 
tliat "the truest objects of warm attachment 
are the small parts of great characters.*' Who 
does not love Cowper taming his hares, or en- 
joy Johnson sipping his tea, or Pope at work 
in his garden, when the talents which inspired 
our admiration, and seemed to lift their pos- 
sessor beyond the common reach of our sym- 
pathies, take pleasure in those slender joys 
which make up the sum of common happiness? 

"Let me tell you a ridiculous circumstance 
which happened the other day," writes Han- 
nah in one of her delightful home -letters. 
"After dinner Garrick took up the Monthly 
Eeview — civil gentlemen, by the by, these 
monthly reviewers — and read 'Sir Eldred' 
with all his grace and pathos. I think I was 
never so ashamed in my life ; but he read it so 
superlatively that I cried like a child. Only 
think, what a scandalous thing to cry at the 
reading of one's own poetry! I could have 
beaten myself; for it looked as if I thought it 
very moving, which I can truly say is far from 
being the case. But the beauty of the jest lies 
in this: Mrs. Garrick twinkled as well as I, 



50 HANNAH MORK. 

and made as many apologies for crying at ber 
husband's reading, as I did for crying at my 
o^vn verses. She got out of the scrape by pre- 
tending that she was touched by the story, and 
/ by saying the same thing of the reading. It 
f irnished us a great laugh at the catastrophe, 
when it really would have been decent to have 
been a little more sorrowful." 

Garrick, for so many years the pride of 
the English stage, was now about to quit it for 
the calm of private life. Having nearly reach- 
ed his ''chair age," and becoming increasingly 
subject to severe attacks of sickness, he resolv- 
ed to leave with all his honors thick upon him. 
Before doing so, he consented once more, and 
for the last time, to exhibit his remarkable 
powers, and for two or three weeks Drury 
Lane was filled with admiring audiences. In 
the character of Hamlet, Garrick is said to 
have excelled — filling, with singular power, 
says one, the whole soul of the spectator, and 
transcending the most finished idea of the poet. 

"I have at last," writes Hannah on this 
occasion to Dr. Stonehouse, "had the entire 
satisfaction of seeing Garrick in Hamlet. Pos- 
terity will never bo able to form the slightest 
idea of his powers. The more I see him, the 



LITERARY BLOSSOMINGS. 51 

more I wonder and admire. It seems to me 
as if I had been assisting at the funeral obse- 
quies of the poets. I feel almost as much pain 
as pleasure. He is quite happy in the pros- 
])ect of his release." 

The strong intelligence of his eye, the ani- 
mated and ever -varying expression of his 
whole countenance, the flexibility of his voice, 
with his grace and ease of attitude, is said al- 
together to have produced an indescribable and 
profound impression upon the mind, and one 
which no language can convey to another. 

At the final parting Garrick wept, while 
tears and applauses accompanied him from the 
si age. This occurred in May, 1776. 

He soon afterwards disposed of his share 
in Drury Lane for £35,000, and retreated to 
domestic privacy. Touching the event, Han- 
nah expressed herself in the concluding verses 
of a little poem, written after her return to 
Bristol, and addressed to Dragon, Garrick's 
favorite aog. 

" How wise, long pampered with applause, 
To make a voluntary pause, 

And lay his laurels down I 
Boldly repelling each strong claim, 
To dare assert to wealth and fame, 

Enouo'h of both I Ve known. 



6a HANNAH MORE. 

How wise, a short retreat to steal, 
The vanity of life to feel, 

And from its cares to fly : 
To act one calm, domestic scene, 
Earth's bustle and the grave between, 

Retire, and learn to die." 

What Dragon failed to appreciate, the poet 
naturally concluded his master would. Man- 
uscript copies were handed around and read 
by her friends, until she was induced to pub- 
lish it in 1778, when a thousand copies were 
sold in a single week. 

On the following summer we find Miss 
More journeying into Norfolk, hunting up old 
friends of her father, visiting country cousins, 
eating brown bread and custards, and thor- 
oughly appreciatiug all the good-sense which 
fell in her way. 

Hannah never knew whether to be angry 
or ashamed, whether to scold or to blush at 
the fashionable impositions of her day. "I 
protest," she exclaimed, in speaking of some 
^oung ladies who came in to pay her an even- 
ing's visit, ''1 hardly do them justice when I 
pronounce that they had among them, on their 
heads, an acre and a half of shrubbery, besides 
slopes, grass-plats, tulip-beds, clumps of peo- 
nies, kitchen-gardens, and green-houses." 



LITERARY BLOSSOMINGS. 53 

*^ Some ladies carry on their heads a hirge 
quantity of fruit, and yet they would des|>ix;e a 
poor, useful member of society who carried it 
there for the purpose of selling it for bread. 
Spirit of Addison," she humorously supplicates, 
"thou, who with such fme humor and polished 
sarcasm didst lash the cherry-colored hood and 
party patches, and cut down a whole harvest 
of follies, awake ; for the follies thou didst lash 
were but the beginning of follies, and the ab- 
surdities thou didst censure were but the seeds 
of absurdities.'^ 

Garrick, it is said, struck the first blow to 
this fashionable folly, by appearing one even- 
ing on the stage, his cap decorated with a pro- 
fusion of every sort of vegetable, with a huge 
carrot hanging down on either side. 

One cannot help thinking that the spirit of 
reform has been heard in the councils of fash- 
ion, for her sway is surely more benign in our 
own day; indeed, when we compare the frightful 
wigs and cushions, the high-heeled shoes and 
buckram bodices of our grandames, with the 
comparative ease and naturalness of our own 
times, one cannot help hoping that Fashion 
has entered into a league of good-fellowship 
with Nature, sriticiouslv allowino* her the exer- 



64 HANNAH MORE. 

cise of some of her inalienable rights to life 
and liberty, if not to the pursuit of happi- 
ness. 

But if the follies of London, aped in tlie 
retreats of Hertfordshire, pained and provoked 
her, she found some amends in a visit to Mrs. 
Barbauld, and in the sterling merits of her 
cousin Cotton, from whose style of living she 
draws the following sensible conclusion, true 
all the w^orld over, and worthy the serious 
consideration of people whose expenses are 
getting the better of their principles and their 
purses. ** I have long ago found out that 
hardly anybody but frugal, plain people do 
genero'us things. Our cousin Cotton, who I 
dare say is often ridiculed for his simplicity 
and frugality, could yet lay down £200, with- 
out being sure of ever receiving a shilling in- 
terest, for the laudable purpose of establishing 
a worthy minister, to whom he is still a very 
considerable contributor. This is commonly 
the case ; and I am apt to conceive a prejudice 
against everybody who makes a great figure, 
and to suspect those who talk generously." 

On her return, she accompanied the Gar- 
ricks to Farnborough-place, the residence of 
Mr. Wilmot, where she met, among other dis- 



LITERARY BLOSSOMIx^GS. 65 

tiuguislicd guests, Dr. Kennicott, Hebrew Pro- 
fessor of Oxford, and his wife, with whom Miss 
More formed a life-long friendship. 

In the year 1777, at the urgent entreaty 
of Garrick, she determined to try her poweis 
for the stage, and "Percy" was the fruit of 
her labors. Delighted with her success, he 
recommended it to Mr. Harris the manager of 
Drur}^ Lane. The tragedy was accepted, and 
preparations were speedily made for bringing 
it out. Hannah went to London to bespeak a 
prologue from Garrick, who humorously beg- 
ged to know what she meant to pay him ; Dry- 
den, he declared, used to have five guineas ; 
but as he was a richer man, he would be con- 
tent with a handsome supper. The author in- 
sisted she could only afford a beef-steak and a 
bottle of porl-er. At last they settled down on 
toast and honey — highly flavored, we may ven- 
ture to add, with wit and good-humor. 

Percy was received with acclamation, and 
for twelve nights was played to overflowing 
houses, netting her £700. 

The Duke of Northumberland and the Earl 
of Percy sent to congratulate her on her great 
success, and to thank her for the honor she had 
done them by selecting her subject from the 



56 HANNAH MORE. 

historical records of their family. Detained 
at home by the gout, they sent and bought 
tickets, for which they paid as "became the 
blor)d of i\\o Percies.'^ 

"Many scenes in this play," says Davics, 
Garrick's biographer, "prognosticate to our 
stage a rising genius in tragedy, who in time 
will produce scenes not inferior to the best of 
Otway and Southem, without that mixture of 
licentiousness and vulgarity which disgrace the 
productions of these writers." 

The success of Percy increased the interest 
already felt in Hannah More by her London 
friends. She was beset with engagements and 
visitations. One day we find her at Sir Josh- 
ua's, another at Mrs. Montagu's, with Mrs. 
Chapone, Mrs. Boscawen, and Miss Carter ^ 
another at the Garricks', with the "Sour-crout 
party," a meeting of learned men once a week 
at dinner, at which sour-crout always made a 
dish, and to which Miss More was always in- 
An'te'l when she was in town. 

* They are playing Percy," writes its au- 
thor to her sisters, "at this very moment, ,^or 
the seventh time. I never think of going, it 
is very odd, but it does not amuse me." 

"Last night was the ninth of Percy: it 



LITERARY BLOSSOMINGS. 51 

was a brilliant house, and / was there. Lady 
North did me the honor to take a stage -box. 
I trembled when the wickedness of going to 
war was spoken, as I was afraid my Lord was 
in the house, and that speech, though not writ- 
ten with any particular design, is so bold, and 
is so warmly received, that it frightens me. 
Mrs. Montagu had a box again, which, as she 
is a consummate critic, and is hardly ever seen 
at a public place, is a great credit to the play. 
We spent an agreeable evening together at Dr. 
Cadogan's, where she and I, being the only 
two monsters in the creation who never touch 
a card — and laughed at enough we are for it — ■ 
had the fireside to ourselves, and a more elegant 
and instructive conversation I have seldom en- 
joyed. I met Mrs. Chapone one day at Mrs. 
Montagu's: she is one of Percy's warmest ad- 
mirers; and as she does not go to plays, but 
has formed her opinion in the closet, it is more 
flattering." 

"Mrs. Garrick came to me this morning, 
and wished me to go to the Adelphi, which I 
declined doing, being so ill. She would have 
gone herself to fetch me a physician, anl in- 
sisted upon sending me my dinner, which I 
refused ; but at six this evening, when Gar- 



68 HANNAH MORE. 

rick came to the Turk's Head to dine, there 
accompanied him in the coach a minced chick- 
en in the Stow-pan, hot, a canister of her fine 
ten., and a pot of cream. Were there ever 
such people ? Tell it not in epic or lyric that 
the great Eoscius rode with a stew-pan of 
minced meat with him in the coach, for my 
dinner. Percy is acted again this evening: 
do any of you choose to go ? For my own 
part, I shall enjoy a much superior pleasure — 
that of sitting by the fire, in a good chair, and 
being denied to all company : what is Percy to 
this ?" 

Miss More remained at London during the 
winter, and in April, 1778, returned to Bris- 
tol, where she spent the summer in the quiet 
enjoyment of home. 



DEATH OF GARRICK. 59 



CHAPTER Y. 

DEATH OF GARRICK— THEATRICAL AMUSE- 
MENTS. 

The New-year's greetings of 1779 Lad 
scarcely died away before the tidings of Gar- 
rick's death startled the English public. Amid 
the Christmas festivities of Althorp he was 
suddenly attacked by his old complaint the 
stone, whose premonitory warnings he had dis- 
regarded in leaving home and mingling at all 
in the gayeties of the season. 

Recovering a little, he was carried to Lon- 
don, where it was thought skill and attention 
might again restore him. The distemper not 
yielding to the usual remedies, some of the 
most able practitioners of the city came unbid- 
den to his bedside; but the power of human 
science and the faithful nursing of his wife 
availed not. Life was ebbing. His family 
physician informed him that if he had any 
worldly affairs to settle, it would be pruden 
to despatch them as soon as possible. 

"I have nothing of that kind to do," an- 
swered Garrick, on whose now wan and sunken 



60 HANNAH MORE. 

face tlie sliadow of death was already pass- 
ing. 

Wednesday morning, January 20tli, 1779, 
■witnessed his closing act in the great drama of 
life. 

Obedient to the summons of the afflicted 
wife, Hannah arose from her sick-bed and has- 
tened to the house of death. Mrs. Garrick 
sunk into her arms. ''I have this moment 
embraced his coffin, and you come next," she 
exclaimed with a bursting heart; "the good- 
ness of God to me is inexpressible. I do not 
deserve it, but I am thankful for it." 

What a change in the princely mansion! 
the wit, the genius, the presence of its "well- 
graced master" were no longer there. Sorrow 
sat upon every household face, and the rooms 
were hung with the drapery of mourning. 

After mingling her tears and ministering 
her consolations to the living, she paid a micl- 
ancholy visit to all that was left of the de- 
parted. 

"His new house,'* she says, "is not so 
pleasant as Hampton or so splendid as the 
Adelphi, but it is commodious enough for tho 
wants of its inhabitant; and besides, it is so 
quiet that he will never be disturbed until 



DEATH OF GARRICK. 61 

the eternal morning. May he then find 
mercy." 

The funeral solemnities took place on the 
first of February, with all the pomp vnd cir- 
curastance of an English public burial, whea 
his body was laid in the poet's corner, beneath 
the tomb of Shakspeare in Westminster Abbey. 
Hannah, accompanied by Miss Cadogan, 
sat in a little gallery directly over the grave, 
where she could distinctly hear and see the 
solemn ceremony. ''And this is all of Gar- 
rick," was the sad utterance of her heart; "yet 
a very little wnile and he shall say to the 
worm. Thou art my brother; and to corrup- 
tion. Thou art my mother and my sister. So 
passes away the fashion of this world." 

Miss More, after Garrick's death, wrote 
two more dramas, "The Fatal Falsehood," and 
"The Inflexible Captive;" and with these 
closed her contributions to the stage. This 
period of intellectual excitement and literary 
success was brief as it was brilliant ; her views 
of theatrical amusements began to change, and 
a few years later she came to regard them as 
dangerous to morals and hostile to Christian 
virtue. 

There are few perhaps whose opinions upon 



62 HANNAH MORE. 

tnis subject are more entitled to respect. Her 
social connections and friendly intercourse 
with Garrick would have tempted her to view 
them in the most favorable light, nor could she 
be accused of any se€ret or early bias against 
them, it being then thought no disparagement 
to the religious character of dignitaries and 
members of the church to frequent the theatre. 

''Why,'^ let us ask, "why write for the 
stage at all ?'' 

''Because," she replie6, "I was led to en- 
tertain what I must now think a delusive hope, 
that the stage, under certain regulations, might 
be converted into a school of virtue; that 
though a bad play would always be a bad 
thing, yet the representation of a good one 
might become not only harmless, but useful. 
On these grounds I attempted some theatrical 
compositions, which, whatever other defects 
might be justly imputed to them, should at 
least have been written on the side of virtue 
and modesty, and which should neither hold 
out any corrupt image to the mind nor any 
impure description to the fancy.'' 

Are not then good plays harmless, nay, 
improving ? 

"There will still remain,'^ she replies, "even 



THEATRICAL AMUSEMENTS. 63 

in tragedies otherwise the most unexceptiona- 
ble, provided they are sufficiently impassioned 
to produce a powerful effect on the feelings, 
and have spirit enough to deserve to become 
popular, an essential, radical defect. What 1 
insist on is, that there almost inevitably runs 
through the whole web of the tragic drama a 
prominent thread of false principle. It is gen- 
erally the leading object of the poet to erect a 
standard of hono?', in direct opposition to the 
standard of Christianity. Worldly honor is 
the very soul and spirit and life-giving princi- 
ple of the drama. It is her moral and political 
law. Fear and shame are the capital crimes 
in her code. Love, jealousy, hatred, ambition, 
pride, revenge, are too often elevated into the 
rank of splendid virtues, and form a dazzling 
system of worldly morality in direct contra- 
diction to the spirit of Christianity. The fruits 
of the Spirit and the fruits of the stage, if the 
parallel were followed up, would exhibit as 
pointed a contrast as human imagination could 
conceive.'' 

What, nnist the merits of every play be 
tried by the Ten Commandments? 

** We may at least venture to answer, that 
they should contain nothing hostile to them. 



64 HANNAH MORE. 

If harmless merriment be not expected to ad- 
vance our moral improvement, we must take 
care that it do not oppose ii] for if we con- 
cede tha' our amusements are not expected to 
make us better than we are, ought we not in 
be careful that they do not make us worse 
than they find us? Whatever pleasantry of 
idea or gayety of sentiment we admit, should 
we not jealously watch against any unsound- 
ness in the general principle or mischief in the 
prevailing tendency ?" 

But what essential difference is there be- 
tween reading a play and seeijig it acted? Sure- 
ly one would not object to reading dramatic 
composition. 

"I think there is a substantial difference,'' 
she still argues, "between seeing and reading 
a dramatic composition, and that the objec- 
tions which lie so strongly against the one, are 
not. at least in the same degree, applicable to 
the other. While there is an essential and 
Inseparable danger attendant on dramatic ex- 
aibitions, the danger in reading a play arises 
solely from the improper sentiments contained 
in it. It is the semblance of real action which 
is given to the piece by different persons sup- 
porting the different parts, and by their dress. 



THEATRICAL AMUSEMENTS. 65 

tones, and gestures, heightening the represen- 
tation into a kind of enchantment. It is the 
pageantry, the splendor of the spectacle, and 
even the show of the spectators, these are the 
circumstances which fill the theatre, produce 
the effect, and create the danger. These give 
a pernicious force to sentiments which, when 
read, may merely explain the mysterious action 
of the human heart, but Avhich when thus ut- 
tered and accompanied, become contagious and 
destructive. These, in short, make up a scene 
of temptation and seduction, of overwrought 
voluptuousness and unnerving pleasure, which 
ill accords with a desire to be enlightened by 
the doctrines, or governed by the principles of 
the gospel of Jesus Christ.'^ 

But may not the stage become purified, so 
as to render it at least harmless and unobjec- 
tionable? 

"What the stage might be under another 
and an imaginary state of things, it is not very 
easy for us to know, and therefore not very 
important to inquire. Nor is it the soundest 
logic to argue on the possible goodness of a 
thing which, in the present circumstances of 
society, is doing positive evil, from the imagined 
good that thing might be conjectured to produce 



60 HANNi^n MORE. 

in a supposed state of unattainable improve- 
ment; for unfortunately nothing can be done 
until not only the stage itself has undergone 
complete purification, but until the audience 
shall be purified also. AYe must first suppose 
a state of society in which the spectators will 
be disposed to relish all that is pure, and to 
reprobate all that is corrupt, before the sys- 
tem of a pure and uncorrupt theatre can be 
adopted with any reasonable hope of success : 
there must always be a harmony between the 
taste of the spectator and the nature of the 
spectacle, in order to produce pleasure ; for 
people go to a play not to be instructed, but 
to be amused." 

Let every thoughtful parent, doubting Chris- 
tian, or tempted youth, read carefully and pon- 
der seriously these positions. There is per- 
haps no question in Christian education more 
difficult to settle than what amusements are 
safe for our children, or what recreations the 
young Christian, away from the restraints and 
pastimes of home, may engage in with safety 
to himself and honor to his divine Master. 

We would point the latter to those prin^ 
ciples laid down to Wesley by his mother: 
*' Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the 



THEATRICAL AMUSEMENTS. 61 

tenderness of your conscience, obscures your 
sense of God, or takes off the relish of vspirit- 
ual things, in short, whatever increases the 
strength and authority of your body over your 
mind, that thing is sm to you, however inno- 
cent it may be in itself.'^ 

And yet you may be placed amid influen- 
ces which for a time may blind your judgment, 
and persuade you from your steadfastness : you 
find yourself overpowered by plausible reason- 
ing, which you cannot readily meet, and be- 
cause you cannot meet it you are tempted to 
yield. You are not unlikely to find yourself 
thus perplexed; what shall you do? Shall 
3^ou yield without hearty conviction, in defer- 
ence to the skill or the sneer of your compan- 
ions ? 

What shall you do ? Eefer to the example 
of intelligent men and women, eminent for holi- 
ness : how have devoted servants of God viewed 
the subject ? What has been the Christian ap- 
prehension of the church upon the matter ? It 
is of no great consequence whether you under- 
stand or not the train of thought or course of 
argument by which their minds were made up 
and their conduct directed; you have no time 
it may be, to examine them if you would : it is 



68 HANNAH MORE. 

enough to know how they acted, and that it 
will be safe and wise to imitate their example. 
Do not hesitate to lean upon an argument 
like this, in harmony with the spirit of the word 
of God. It is no sign of weakness to take coun- 
sel of the matured judgments of Christian ex- 
perience, and no sign of manliness to disregard 
them. 



CORRESPONDENCE. G9 



CHAPTER YI. 

CORRESPONDENCE. 

''Hampton, 1780. 

*'I WISH you a merry Christmas as well as 
a iappy New Year, but that I hate the word 
ih^rvy as so applied; it is a fitter epithet for 
a bacchanalian than a Christian festival, and 
seems an apology for idle mirth and injurious 
excess. What frost, what snow! The vast 
expanse of glittering white on the ground, the 
fluid brilliants dropping from the trees, and 
the green-house full of beautiful blossoms and 
oranges, make it altogether look like some re- 
gion of enchantment ; and as the gravel w^alks 
are all swept clean, I parade an hour or two 
every morning." 

''1781. 

''If I commit any sin here or do any good 
here, it must be in thought, for our words are 
few and our deeds not at all. Poor Hermes 
Harris is dead! Everybody is dead, I think; 
one is almost ashamed of being alive. That 
you may not think I pass my time quite idly, 
I must tell you that I had begun Belshazzar ; 



70 HANNAH MORE. 

1 like the subject, and have made some progress 
in it. But that and all my other occupations 
have given way to the melancholy employment 
of reading over with Mrs. Garrick all the pri- 
vate letters of the dear deceased master of this 
melancholy mansion. The employment, though 
sad, is not without its amusement; it is reading 
the friendly correspondence of all the men who 
have made a figure in the annals of busine^ss or 
of literature for the last forty years ; for I think 
I hardly miss a name of eminence in Great 
Britain, and not many in Finance: it includes 
also all his answers, some of the first wits in 
the country confessing their obligations over 
and over again to his bounty ; money given to 
some, and lent to such numbers as would be 
incredible if one did not read it in their own 
letters. It is not the least instructive part of 
this employment to consider where almost all 
these great men are now ; the play- writers, 
where are they? and the poets, are their fires 
extinguished? Did Lord Bath, or Bishop 
Warburton, or Lord Chatham, or Goldsmith, 
or Churchill, or Chesterfield, trouble them- 
selves with thinking that the heads that dic- 
tated those bright epistles would so soon be 
laid low? Did they imagine that such a no- 



CORrwESPONDENCE. 11 

body as I am, whom they would have disdain- 
ed to have reckoned 'with the dogs of their 
flock,' should have had the arranging and dis- 
posing of them?" 

"LoxDox, x\pril, 1781. 

*'I was last Monday at a meeting at the 
Bishop of St. Asaphs, and had the pleasure of 
a vast deal of snug chat with the bishop, Mr. 
Walpole, Mrs. Montagu, and Mrs. Carter. 

*'Mrs. Kennicott tells me Bishop Lowth in- 
sists upon my publishing 'Sensibility,' and all 
my other poems together, immediately, that 
people may have them all together. The Dean 
of Gloucester has sent me his book against 
Locke, splendidly bound. 

**0n Friday I dined at Mrs. Boscawen's. 
We had a snug day and a deal of that social, 
cordial chat that is so preferable to all the 
mummery of great parties. 

"Tuesday we were a small and choice party 
at Bishop Shipley's. Lord and Lady Spencer, 
Lord and Lady Althorpe, Sir Joshua, Bos- 
well, Gibbon, and to my agreeable surprise, 
Dv Johnson. 

"Mrs. Garrick and he had never met since 
her bereavement. Johnson came to see us the 
next morning, and made us a long visit. On 



72 HANNxiH MORE. 

Mrs. Garrick's telling him she was always 
more at ease with persons who had suffered 
the same loss with herself, he said that was a 
comfort she could seldom have, considering 
the superiority of his merit and the cordiality 
of their union. He bore his strong testimony 
of the liberality of Garrick. He reproved me 
with pretended sharpness for reading Pascal or 
any of the Port Eoyal authors, alleging, that 
as a good Protestant, I ought to abstain from 
books written by Catholics. I was beginning 
to stand upon my defence, when he took me 
with both hands, and with a tear running down 
his cheeks, 'Child,' said he, with the most af- 
fecting earne-stness, 'I am heartily glad that 
you read pious books, by whomsoever they 
may be written.' '' 

"On Monday we had a farewell party at 
Mrs. Yesey's, where we were a little sad to 
think how many of us might never meet again, 
particularly poor Mrs. Yesey herself, who is 
going to Ireland at an advanced age, and in 
bad health." 

" On Tuesday Mrs. Boscawen carried me to 
Glanvilla; we had the pleasantest tete-a-tete 
day imaginable, and walked about and sat 
under the spreading oak, and ate our cold 



CORRESPONDENCE. 78 

chicken, and drank our tea, as happy folks are 
wont to do." 

In June Miss More returned to her sisters, 
taking Mrs. Garrick with her, wdio remained a 
raontli at Bristol. Hannah stayed until De- 
cember, when she again took up her abode in 
her friend's family. 

''Sensibility," a short poem, which a good 
critic of our own day declares ''should be 
printed in -letters of gold," had been passed 
around in manuscript among her friends, at 
whose repeated and urgent request it was now 
published, in company with four sacred dramas. 

"The word sacred in the title is a damper 
in the Dramas," writes Miss More. "It is 
tying a millstone about the neck of 'Sensibil- 
ity,' which will drown them both together." 

"Bishop Low^th has just finished the Dra- 
mas, and sent me word, that although I have 
paid him the most swinging compliment he 
ever received, he likes the whole book more 
than he can say. But the Bishop of Chester's 
compliment is more solid ; he said he thought 
it would do a vast deal of good — and that is 
the praise best w^orth having." 

"Mrs. Montagu, Chapone, and Carter, are 
mightily pleased that I have attacked that 



74 RAXNAII MORE. 

mock feeling and sensibility which is at ouce 
the boast and disgrace of these times, and 
v/hich is equally deficient in taste and truth. 
Ask Dr. Sionehouse if he has read 'Cardipho- 
liia,* by Mr. Newton of Olney. There is in it 
much vital religion, and much of the experience 
of a good Christian, who feels and laments his 
own imperfections and weaknesses. I have 
just finished six volumes of Jortin's sermons ; 
elegant, but cold and very low in doctrine : 
'plays round the head, but comes not to the 
heart;' Cardiphonia does: I like it much, 
though not every sentiment or expression that 
it contains." 

'' On Monday I was at a very great assem- 
bly at the Bishop of St. Asaph's. Conceive to 
3^ourself one hundred and fifty to two hundred 
people met together, dressed in the extremity 
of fashion ; painted as red as bacchanals ; poi- 
soning the air with perfumes ; treading on each 
other's gowns ; making the crowd they blame ; 
not one in ten able to get a chair ; protesting 
they are engaged to ten other places, and la- 
menting the fatigue they are not obliged to 
endure; ten or a dozen card-tables crammed 
with dowagers of quality, grave ecclesiastics, 
and yellow admirals, and you have an idea of 



CORRESPONDENCE. 15 

an assembly. I never go to such things when 
I can possibly avoid it, and stay when there as 
few minutes as I can.'^ 

"London, 1782. 

'' Poor Johnson is in quite a bad state of 
health : I fear his constitution is broken up ; I 
am quite grieved at it; he will not leave an 
abler defender of religion and virtue behind 
him, and the following little touch of tender- 
ness which I heard of him last night from one 
of the Turk's Head Club, endears him to me 
exceedingly. There are always a great many 
candidates ready, when any vacancy happens 
in that club, and it requires no small interest 
and reputation to get elected ; but upon Gar- 
rick's death, when numberless applications 
were made to succeed him, Johnson was deaf 
to them all ; he insisted there should be a 
year's widowhood in the club before they 
thought of any new election. In Dr. Johnson 
some contrarieties harmoniously meet; if he 
has too little charity for the opinions of others, 
and too little patience with their faults, he has 
the greatest tenderness for their persons. He 
told me the other day he hated to hear peoj)le 
whine about metaphysical distresses, when there 
were so much want and huno-er in the world." 



76 HANNAH MORE. 

" Mrs. Carter and I met at a little break- 
fast party with a French lady who writes met- 
aphysical books. We got into disgrace by 
saying that a little common-sense and a little 
scripture would lead one much farther and 
safer than volumes of metaphysics. She for- 
gave us, however, on condition we would read 
two huge quartos which she had just trans- 
lated. What Mrs. Carter will do I know not, 
but I shall certainly never fulfil my part of the 
contract." 

In June, Hannah makes a summer flitting 
to the Kennicott's at Oxford, where she met 
Dr. Johnson, and found him sad, sick, and dis- 
consolate. 

The death of his friend Mr. Thrale, which 
had occurred the year before, whose eye for 
fifteen years, as Johnson tenderly says, ''had 
scared}^ been turned upon him but v/ith respect 
and tenderness," had left a void which nothing 
filled ; "such another friend the general course 
of human things will not suffer man to hope for." 
He mournfully adds, "In our walk through 
life we have dropped our companions, and are 
iiow^ to pi:k up such as chance may offer to us, 
or travel alone.'- As the long shadows of age 
and ill health crept over him, Dr. Johnson felt 



CORRESPONDENCE. 77 

the want of those home affections which are 
our best earthly solace, and which, when the 
busy interests of early and middle life are 
over, bear us gently and patiently to our final 
rest. 

In a journey to Oxford at this time, under- 
taken for the benefit of his health and spirits, 
the doctor met Miss More, who, grieved at his 
wan and dejected appearance, made every 
effort to amuse him. The memory of early 
days quickened the ''old man eloquent,'^ as in 
her company he retraced the haunts of his col- 
lege days. On entering a hall, a fine large 
print of Johnson, handsomely framed, stared 
upon the party from the opposite wall, w^ith 
the appended motto, from Miss More's "Sen- 
sibility," 

"AND IS NOT JOHNSON OURS, HIMSELF A HOST?" 

a pleasing surprise prepared by Dr. Adams, 
Master of Pembroke, for his distinguished 
guests. 

The doctor remained but a short time; a 
few beams from the light of early years shot 
across his path, but they could not renew the 
Joys of youth or lighten the infirmities of age. 



18 HANNAH MORE. 

"London, March, 1183. 

*' On Friday I was at a very fine party at 
Lady Rotlies', where I found a vast many of 
my friends — Mrs. Montagu, Boscawen, Carter, 
Thrall, Burney, and Lady Dartry; in short, it 
was remarked that there was not a woman in 
London who has been distinguished for taste 
and literature that was absent. The men were 
modest and were abashed, the other sex made 
so strong a party." 

'' I should be glad to know what our friend 
Dr. Stonehouse would say to such new-fash- 
ioned doctrines as I have lately heard in a 
charity sermon by a dignified ecclesiastic, and 
a popular one too, but I will not tell his name : 
he told the rich and great that they ought to 
be extremely liberal in their charities, because 
they were happily exempted from the severer 
virtues. How do you like such a sentiment 
from a Christian teacher ? What do you think 
Polycarp or Ignatius would say to it ?" 

"March 27. 

*'I went and sat the other morning with 
Dr. Johnson, who is far from well. Our con- 
versation was very interesting, but so many 
came in that I began to feel foolish, and soon 
sneaked off." 



CORRESPONDENCE. 19 

" May 5. 

** Solurdaj we had a dinner at home, Mrs. 
Carter, Miss Hamilton, the Kennicotts, and 
Dr. Johnson. Poor Johnson exerted himself 
exceedingly, but he was very ill, and looked 
so dreadfully it quite grieved me. His sick- 
ness seems to have softened his mind, without 
at all weakening it. We had but a small party 
of such of his friends as w^e knew would be 
most agreeable to him ; and as we were all 
very attentive, and paid him the homage he 
both expects and deserves, he was very com- 
municative, and of course instructive and de- 
lightful in the highest degree." 

"May 22. 

''A visitor is just gone, quite chagrined 
that I am such a rigid Methodist that I cannot 
come to her assembly on Sunday, though she 
protests with great piety that she never has 
cards, and that it is quite savage in me to 
think there can be any harm in a little agree- 
able music." 

While Hannah was at Bristol, during 178 1, 
she became interested for a poor w^oman in 
the neighborhood who, in the depths of famine 
and distress, had exhibited striking poetic tal- 



80 HANNAH MORE. 

ent, and assisted her in preparing a small vol- 
ume of her poems for the press. The work 
having been completed, friends were enlisted 
in its publication. 

''I should have taken as much pain as pleas- 
ure in the fine stanzas you sent me/' resjDonds 
Mrs. Alontagu, " if you had not at the same 
time assured me you had taken care this noble 
creature should not want the little comforts of 
life. I shall most joyfully contribute to\vards 
procuring them for her: far, far away all hea- 
then ethics and mythology, geometry and alge- 
bra, and make room for the Bible and Milton, 
when a poet is to be made.'' 

Nearly five hundred pounds were raised 
upon the book, which were placed in the hands 
of trustees, and invested in the public funds 
for the use of the poet and her famil3^ En- 
raged that the sum was not at her own dis- 
posal, the woman turned against her benefac- 
tor, and accused her of having embezzled it. 
So outrageous was her conduct, that no one 
w^ould hold the trust, and the money fell into 
her own hands, to be idly squandered, and she 
died at last destitute and friendless. Of the 
incident, Hannah says, "I grieve for poor fall- 
en human nature ; for as to ray own particular 



CORRESPONDENCE. 81 

part, I am persuaded Providence intends me 
good by it. Had she turned out well, I should 
have had my reward; as it is, I have my trial. 
Perhaps I was too vain of my success, and in 
counting over the money might be elated, and 
think, Is not this great Babylon that / have 
built?'' 

Two little poems which had been passed 
around among her friends in manuscript were 
now published, the Bas Bleu and Florio. Flo- 
rio was dedicated to Horace Walpole: ''It is 
a paltry return,'' she writes to him, "for the 
many hours of agreeable information and ele- 
gant amusement which I have received from 
your spirited and very entertaining writings, 
and yet I am persuaded you will receive it 
with favor, as a small offering of esteem and 
gratitude." 

"Poor, dear Johnson," she writes, "is past 
all hope. I have, however, the comfort to hear 
that his dread of dying is in a great measure 
subdued. He sent the other day for Sir Joshua, 
and after much serious conversation told him 
ho had three favors to beg of him, and he hoped 
lie would not refuse a dying friend, be ihey 
what they would. Sir Joshua promised. The 
first was, that he would never paint on Sun- 



«3 HANNAH MORE. 

day; the second, that he would give him £30 
that he had lent him, as he wanted to leave 
them to a distressed family; the third, that he 
Avould read the Bible whenever he had an op- 
portunity, and that he would never omit it on 
Sunday." 

How solemn are the closing scenes of this 
dying man. He is styled the Moralist. Jus- 
tice, truth, virtue, were the pillars of his char- 
acter; at all times and in all places he was 
loyal to his convictions of duty, and reverent 
towards God. In the wide grasp of his clear, 
calm, comprehensive mind, he everywhere dis- 
cerned a moral government, and recognized a 
righteous Governor; his conscience, unseared 
by passion or self-indulgence, spoke solemn- 
ly, and was heard ; the fear of God was upon 
him ; but now, as the curtains of death close 
around his brave heart and unclouded intellect, 
he lies helpless, wrestling for hope, panting for 
peace, raising his eyes with a fearful looking 
for of judgment into the eternal world. ''The 
approach of death is dreadful, '^ he exclaims. 
*'I am afraid to think on that which I know I 
cannot avoid. It is vain to look round and 
round for that help which cannot be had ; yet 
we hope and hope, and fancy that he who has 



CORRESPONDENCE. <?8 

lived to-day, may live to-morrow. No wise 
man will be contented to die, if lie thinks he 
is going into a state of punishment. Nay, no 
wise man will be contented to die, if he thinks 
he is to fall into annihilation ; for however un- 
happy any man's existence may be, yet he 
would rather have it than not exist at all. No ; 
there is no rational principle by which a man 
can die contented, but a trust in the mercy of 
God through the merits of Jesus Christ.'' 

And yet when one said to him in an hour 
of gloomy despondency, "You forget the merits 
of your Eedeemer," he replied with deep so- 
lemnity, *'I do not forget the merits of my 
Eedeemer, but my Eedeemer has said. He will 
set some on his right hand and some on his leftP 

"What man," he asks with mournful dis- 
trust, "can say that his obedience has been 
such as he could approve of in another, or that 
his repentance has not been such as to require 
being repented of?" 

"Eemember what you have done by your 
writings in defence of virtue and truth," urged 
his friends. 

"Admitting all you say to be true," an- 
swered the dying hero, "how can I tell when 
I have done enoxighV^ 



84 HANNAH MORE. 

An awful question, who can answer it? 

At last he described the kind of clergyman 
whom he wished to see. Mr. Winstanley was 
named, and a note was despatched requesting 
his attendance in the sick man's chamber. 
Through ill-health and nervous apprehension, 
the clergyman could reply only in writing. 
''Permit me, therefore," ran the note, "to 
write what I should wish to say, were I pres- 
ent. I can easily conceive what would be the 
subjects of your inquiry. I can conceive that 
the views of yourself have changed with your 
condition, and that on the near approach of 
death, what you considered mere peccadilloes, 
have risen into mountains of guilt, while your 
best actions have dwindled into nothing. On 
which ever side jou look, you see only posi- 
tive transgression, or defective obedience ; and 
hence, in self-despair, are eagerly asking, 
'What shall I do to be saved?' I say to you 
in the language of the Baptist, 'Behold the 
Lamb of God.' " 

"Does he say so?" exclaimed the anxious 
listener. "Read it again, Sir John." Upon 
Ihe second reading, Dr. Johnson declared, "1 
must see that man, write again to him.'^ 

A second letter was the reply, eularging 



CORRESPONDENCE. 85 

upon and enforcing the subject of the first. 
*' These, together with the conversation of a 
pious friend, Mr. Latrobe, appear to have been 
blessed of God,'^ continues one in a letter to 
Hannah More, ''in bringing this great man to 
a renunciation of self, and a simple reliance on 
Jesus as his Saviour ; thus also communicating 
to him that peace which he had found the 
world could not give, and which, when the 
world was fading from his view, was to fill the 
void, and dissipate the gloom even of the val- 
ley of the shadow of death. The man whose 
intellectual powers had awed all around him, 
was in turn made to tremble when the period 
arrived when all knowledge is useless and van- 
ishes away, except the knowledge of the true 
God and of Jesus Christ whom he has sent. 
To attain this knowledge, this giant in know- 
ledge must become a little child. The man 
looked up to as a prodigy of wisdom, must 
become a fool, that he might be wise.'' 

"For some time before his death all his 
fears were calmed and absorbed by the preva- 
lence of his faith and his trust in the merit 
and propitiation of Jesus Christ," testifies Dr. 
Brocklesby. 

''My dear doctor, believe a dying man/' 



86 HANNAH MORE. 

exclaimed Johnson, ''there is no salvation hU 
in the Lamh of God J'' 

"How delighted should I be/^ said Han- 
nah More, ''to hear the dying discourse of 
this great and good man, especially now that 
faith has subdued his fears.'' 



COWSLIP GREEN. 8t 

CHAPTER VII. 

COWSLIP GREEN. 

Hitherto Miss More has dwelt in tho 
hearts and by the hearths of beloved friends: 
sometimes we find her at Sandleford Priory, 
the country retreat of Mrs. Montagu; her 
winters were chiefly passed between the Adel- 
phi and Hampton ; sometimes she is brushing 
the dust from the blue stockings at a splendid 
dinner at Strafford Place, or at a quiet even- 
ing at Berkeley-square ; lastly, she is nestling 
with the sisterhood at Bristol. This desul- 
tory life was neither aimless nor unimproved : 
though Miss More had now nearly reached her 
fortieth year, and as yet had produced little 
but a few poems, whose chief attractions were 
their local and personal interest, she had not 
looked idly on the diversified scenes of men 
and manners passing around her ; from these 
ample opportunities of understanding the moral 
defects of English society, she was gathering 
those materials which enabled her afterwards 
to speak so powerfully and successfully in the 
parlors and palaces of England. 



88 HANNAH MORE. 

The death of Garrick deeply impressed 
her. It made an abrupt and solemn pause in 
her social and intellectual enjoyments. His 
taste and genius, his sympathy and interest, 
delighted and dazzled her. Her literary tastes 
were banqueted ; the amplest opportunities to 
enlarge and cultivate her powers were placed 
at her disposal ; and more than all, she was en- 
couraged to enter that field of literature tow- 
ards which she seems to have had a strong and 
early bias : nay, she had entered the lists, and 
"Percy" had been crowned with laurels. 

Garrick died ; it was the first death in the 
gay circle which had first welcomed her to 
London, and it left a void never to be filled. 
In the long shadow which it cast over his 
home, Hannah sat and thought. She saw the 
fashion of the world with its pomps and prais- 
es passing away. Could these satisfy the hun- 
ger of the soul? What was that greater good, 
worthy the energies of her whole being? She 
felt deep within her that it was not all of life 
to live, nor all of death to die: a conviction 
that life had a wider sphere, nobler motlY es, 
higher aims, and more exalted hopes, than lit- 
erary ambition or intellectual enjoyments could 
give fastened itself upon her. She saw ac- 



COWSLIP GREEN. 89 

CQuntahilitij to God, written as with a pen of 
fire upon her time and talents. In the devout 
solitude of her closet, her solemnized spirit 
holds communion with eternal realities ; all 
earthly things seem paltry and worthless, com- 
pared with the favor of God: she inquires 
with serious earnestness what is essential to 
duty and acceptance in Jesus Christ ? what are 
the laws of holy living prescribed in his gos- 
pel? how can the authority of conscience be 
maintained amid the conflicts of passion, of 
sense, and of worldly engagements ? how run 
the Christian race ; how w^in the heavenly 
prize? The higher life of the soul began to 
dawn upon her. 

"I have naturally a small appetite for gran- 
deur," she says, "which is always satisfied, 
even to indigestion, before I leave town, and I 
require a long abstinence to get any relish for 
it again. Yet I repeat, there are very agreea- 
ble people; but there is dress, there is re- 
straint, there is want of leisure, to which I 
find it more difficult to conform for any length 
rjf time — and life is shorts 

One thing which greatly aided her in main- 
taining an habitual thoughtfulness of miud^ 
amid the giddy disregard of sacred things in 



90 HANNAH MORE. 

much of tli8 society in which she mixed, was 
her strict observance of holy time. The Sabbath 
was always to her a day of rest — rest from 
society, from visiting, from all worldly occupa- 
tions and engagements: she used it as it was 
designed to be used by its great Author — as 
a day of religious improvement, a means of 
holy living, sacred to God and eternal things. 
Wherever she was, in whatever company she 
happened to be, she was never afraid of ap- 
pearing singular, by a devout and respectful 
observance of the Lord's day. 

"You know I often told you,'^ she wrote 
home while a resident at the Adelphi, ''that 
Sunday is not only my day of rest, but enjoy- 
ment ; I go twice to the churches where I ex- 
pect the best preaching, frequently at St. 
Clements, to hear my excellent friend Bur- 
rows. Mrs. Garrick declines asking company 
on Sunday on my account, so that I enjoy the 
whole day to myself. After my more select 
reading, I attack South, Atterbury, and War- 
burton. In these great geniuses and original 
thinkers, I see many passages of Scripture 
presented in a strong and striking light. I 
think it right to mix their learned labors with 
the devout effusions of more spiritual writers, 



COWSLIP GREEN. 91 

Baxter, Doddridge, Hopkins, Jeremy Taylor— 
the Shakspeare of divinity — and the profound 
Barrow in turn. I devour much, but I fear 
digest little. In the evening 1 read a sermon 
and prayers to the family, which Mrs. Garrick 
likes much." 

Miss More had for some time gradually 
contracted her circle of acquaintance, confining 
her visits to smaller assemblies and choicer 
friends. 

"I have kept my resolution," she says, 
*'to avoid great crowds, except when I have 
been snared into one under the alluring name 
of a little private party, into which trap I have 
fallen several times. On Saturday I got a 
sober day at Mrs. Montagu's, with only the 
Smelts, and w^e all agreed we had not been 
more comfortable for a long time; and yet 
people rarely have the sense or courage to do 
these things, but must still meet in herds and 
flocks." 

She now began to yearn for a home of her 
own, where she could enjoy undisturbed re- 
tirement, hedged in from the great world, to 
pursue her course of thought, of reading, and 
of occupation, more in harmony with the natu- 
ral simplicity of her tastes, and the progres- 



92 HANNAH MORE. 

sive development of her religious cliaracter. 
When her purpose of doing so became known, 
the notion was assailed with ridicule and ar- 
gument, and not a few agreed in predicting her 
speedy and permanent return to London and 
Bristol. 

In spite of forebodings and dissuasives, 
Miss More at length fixed upon a small estab- 
lishment in the parish of Wrington, ten miles 
from Bristol, so secluded from the hum of the 
great world as to be unvisited even by the 
post. It was a thatched-roof cottage ; flowers 
edge the walks and fringe the green lawn, 
which slopes gently towards the south, diver- 
sified by groups of shrubbery pleasing to the 
eye, and affording a refreshing shade from the 
noontide heats. Beyond in the dusky dis- 
tance rises the Mendip Bidge, bold and grand. 
Behold Cowslip Green ; Horace Walpole call- 
ed it a country cousin to Strawberry-hill. 

''I am fitting up a tiny boudoir at Cowslip 
Green," says the new mistress of the cottage, 
*' which I intend shall contain no literature but 
the offerings of kindness : by this means my 
imagination will convert my little closet into 
a temple of friendship ; and when the weather 
is bad, or my spirits low, what a cordial it 



COWSLIP GREFX. 93 

will be to fancy that I am loved and esteemed 
by so many amiable and worthy people as 
there liave contributed to my instruction and 
delight!" 

''What book shall I send?'' asks Mr. Pe- 
pys, one of her friends and favorites. "To 
send you a skimming-dish or fish-kettle tow- 
ards setting up housekeeping would be making 
too little distinction between you and the next 
good housewife in the parish ; but if you would 
be so good as to tell me any pleasant compan- 
ion who is not already of your party, I should 
have particular pleasure in sending him, and 
should be very much flattered with the idea 
that on some lonely evening he might recall 
me to your memory." 

" I am mightily at a loss," she humorously 
replies, "what book you will send. "What 
think you of a cook-book ? No, that wont do 
either, for it will introduce sauces and luxury, 
and all manner of cunningly devised dishes 
and extravagant inventions into a little cot- 
tage devoted to simplicity, and from whif;h 
aspiring thoughts and luxurious desires are to 
be entirelj excluded. I should beg a wooden 
dish and maple spoon, but that it is pleasanter 
to one's friends to be remembered in one's 



94 HANNAH MORE. 

more intellectual hours. Pray take notice, it 
must not be a fine new hook out of the shop ; 
that would destroy the charm, which lies in 
tills, that the book must be transplanted from 
ilie library of a friend.'^ 

She afterwards wrote to the same gentle- 
man: " After living melodious days with Mrs. 
Montagu, the nightingales, and Spenser, I have 
now been quietly set down in my cottage a 
month, and the evil days have not come where- 
in you barbarously prophesied that I should 
feel a joy even to see the apothecary ride up 
to the door, though it is certain I never do see 
him without thinking of you. I do not express 
myself very accurately when I talk of living 
quietly ; for, in truth, my neighbors are so 
kind, and so many people have brought them- 
selves into the description, that I am far from 
enjoying that perfect retreat which I had fig- 
ured to myself. I work in my garden all the 
morning, and ride in the evening through de- 
licious lanes and hills : my most serious stud- 
ies have been a little book of Mrs. Trimmer's, 
that wise and pleasant friend of little children ; 
it is a most delectable history of Eobin I^ed- 
breast.'-' 

In relation to the temptations which clog- 



COWSLIP GREEN. 95 

ged her spiritual progress in the new home 
which she had chosen, she thus expresses her- 
self to Eev. John Newton : 

'•The care of my garden gives me employ- 
ment, health, and spirits. I want to know, 
dear sir, if it is peculiar to myself to form ideal 
plans of perfect virtue, and to dream of all 
manner of imaginary goodness in untried cir- 
cumstances, while one neglects the immediate 
duties of one's actual situation ? Do I make 
myself understood ? I have always fancied 
that if I could secure to myself such a quiet 
retreat as I have now really accomplished, I 
should be wonderfully good; that I should 
have leisure to store my mind with such and 
such maxims of wisdom ; that I should be safe 
from such and such temptations ; that, in short, 
my whole summers would be smooth periods of 
peace and goodness. Now the misfortune is, 
I have actually found a great deal of the com- 
fort I expected, but without any of the con- 
comitant virtues. I am certainly happier here 
than in the agitation of the world, bu-t I do 
not find that I am one bit better ; with full 
leisure to rectify my heart and affections, the 
disposition unluckily does not come. I have 
the mortification to find that petty and—as 



96 HANNAH MORE. 

they are called — innocent employments can 
detain my heart from heaven as much as tu- 
multuous pleasures. If to the pure all things 
are pure, the reverse must be also true, when 
r can contrive to make so harmless an employ- 
ment as the cultivation of flowers stand in the 
room of a vice, by the great portion of time I 
give up to it, and by the entire dominion it 
has over my mind. You will tell me that if 
the affections be estranged from their proper 
object, it signifies not much whether a bunch 
of roses or a pack of cards affects it. I pass 
my life in intending to get the better of this, 
but life is passing away, and the reform never 
begins. It is a very significant saying, though 
a very old one, of one of the Puritans, that 
'hell is paved with good intentions !' I some- 
times tremble to think how large a square my 
procrastination alone may furnish to this tes- 
selated pavement.'' 

"What you are pleased to say, my dear 
madam, of the state of your mind, I under- 
stand perfectly well,'' answers this good man, 
who well understood the deceitfulness 'of the 
liuman heart; ''I praise God on your behalf, 
and I hope I shall earnestly pray for you. I 
have stood upon that ground myself. 



COWSLIP GREE^^ 97 

*' We arc apt to wonder that, when what 
we accounted hinderances are removed, and 
the things which we conceived would be great 
advantages are put within our power, still 
there is a secret something in the way, whicli 
proves itself to be independent of all external 
changes, because it is not affected by them. 
The disorder we complain of is internal ; and 
in allusion to our Lord's words upon another 
occasion, I may say, it is not any tiling in our 
outward situation — provided it be not actually 
unlawful — that can prevent or even retard our 
advances in religion ; we are defiled and imped- 
ed bv that which is within. So far as our 
hearts are right, all places and circumstances 
which this wise and good providence allots us 
are nearly equal : their hinderances will prove 
helps, losses gains, and crosses will ripen 
into comforts ; but till we are so far apprized 
of the nature of our disease as to put our- 
selves into the hands of the great and only 
Physician, we shall find, like the woman in 
Luke 8 :43, that every other effort for relief 
will leave us as it found us. 

*'Our first thought when we begin to be 
displeased with ourselves, and sensible that we 
have been wrong, is to attempt to reform j to 

H. More. 5 



98 IIANNxVII MORE. 

be sorry for what is amiss, and to endeavor to 
amend. It seems reasonable to ask, What can 
iVG do more ? but while we think we can do so 
much as this, w^e do not fully understand the 
design of the gospel. This gracious message 
from the God who knows our frame speaks 
home to our case. It treats us as siitners — as 
those who have already broken the original 
law^ of our nature in departing from God our 
Creator, supreme Lawgiver, and Benefactor, 
and of having lived to ourselves instead of de- 
voting all our time, talents, and influence to 
his glory. As sinners, the first things we need 
are pardon, reconciliation, and a principle of 
life and conduct entirely new. 

"For these purposes we are directed to 
Jesus Christ, as the wounded Israelites were 
to look at the brazen serpent. John 3 : 14, 15. 
When we understand what the Scripture teach- 
es of the person, love, and offices of Christ, the 
necessity and final cause of his humiliation unto 
death, and feel our own need of such a Sav- 
iour, we then know him to be the light, the 
sun of the world and of the soul ; the source 
of all spiritual light, life, comfort, and influ- 
ence; having access by God to him, and re- 
ceiving out of his fulness grace for grace. 



COWSLIP GREEN. 99 

*' Our perceptions of these things are for 
a time faint and indistinct, like the peep of 
dawn ; but the dawning light, though faint, is 
the sure harbinger of approaching day. 

" The beginnings of spiritual life are small 
in the true Christian; he passes through a suc- 
cession of various dispensations, but he advan- 
ces, though silently and slowly, yet surely, and 
will stand for ever. 

''At the same time, it must be admitted 
that the Christian life is a warfare. Much 
within us and much without us must be resist- 
ed. In such a world as this, and with such a 
nature as ours, there will be a call for habitual 
self-denial. We must learn to cease from de- 
pending upon our own supposed wisdom, pow- 
er, and goodness, and frc^ self-complacency 
and self-seeking, that we may rely upon Him 
whose wisdom and power are infinite.^' 

What individual, earnestly striving for a 
better life, has not sighed over the clogs and 
hinderances which beset his path, and which 
he fondly imagines other situations are exempt 
from? Were this wish fulfilled, were that place 
attained, another goal reached, this obstacle 
removed, then how easy the yoke, how light 
the burden, how smooth the way! Alas, no 



100 HANNAH MORE. 

situation is free from straits and perplexities j 
nowhere are we exempt from the necessity of 
watchfulness and combat. The evil is within 
us. ''The things that we would, we do not; 
ajd the things that w^e would not, those we do." 
''The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the 
spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary 
the one to the other." In this perpetual con- 
flict how can the victory be secured ? Only 
by watchfulness and prayer through our Lord 
Jesus Christ. 



FIRST FRUITS. 101 

CHAPTER YIIl. 

FIRST FRTJITS. 

From the time Cowslip Green was made 
her home in 1785, may be dated higher views 
of duty, a more confirmed religious character, 
and a clearer comprehension of her sphere of 
usefulness. As the retreat was not sought for 
day-dreaming leisure, her time was not whiled 
away in literary effeminacy, nor her pen given 
to pleasing fictions. Hannah More soon found 
she had a work to do for the day and gener- 
ation in which she lived, and vigorously she 
wrought it out. 

The first fruit of Cowslip Green was a 
small book, entitled, '' Thoughts on the Impor- 
tance of the Manners of the Great to General 
Society," an introductory chapter to that ele- 
vated series of Christian teaching which be- 
came the business of her life. 

It first appeared anonymously, *'not so 
much for the fear of man," she says, "whicli 
worketh a snare, as because, if anonymous, it 
may be ascribed to some better person, and 
because I fear I do not live as I write. I hope 



102 HANNAH MORE. 

it may be useful to myself at least, as I give a 
sort of public pledge of my principles, to which 
r pray I may be enabled to act up." 

It was at first attributed to Wilberforce, 
then to the Bishop of London. Its author yet 
unknown, the book being canvassed in her 
presence, she was abruptly asked if she could 
conjecture who wrote it. " Whoever the au- 
thor may be, I doubt not the writer was in 
earnest," replied Miss More with the utmost 
self-possession. But it did not long remain a 
secret. She received at last an anonymous 
epigram. 

" Of sense and religion in this little book, 
All agree there 's a wonderful store ; 
But while round the world for an author they look, 
I only am wishing for MoreP 

This was her first attack upon the ungodly 
habits and minor immoralities of the age : her 
long and intimate acquaintance with the higher 
ranks of English societ}^, for whom, as the title 
indicates, the book was expressly written, en- 
abled her to write with truth and directness : 
she knew whereof she spoke. ''Yet I have 
not gone deep," she says; "it is confined to 
prevailing practical evils: should this succeed, 
I hope by the blessing of God to attack the 



FIRST FRUITS. 103 

principle.'' Rev. John Newton congratulates 
her upon the choice of a subject, and a subject 
too most admirably handled. She skilfully 
describes the features and influence of that 
large class, abounding in every community, 
called good sort of people — people who live 
within the restraints of moral obligation, and 
acknowledge the truth of the Christian relig- 
ion, yet whose views terminate with this 
world's good, and who are destitute of that 
first essential principle of human actions, which 
can alone render them of any value in the 
sight of God, faith in Christ. It is not so 
much v/hat they do, as what they 7ieglect to do, 
wdiich constitutes at once the danger to them- 
selves and others ; it is the coming short which 
is so full of peril. Alas, how many such are 
there all around, pleasant neighbors, generous 
friends, worthy citizens, whose prudence, kind- 
ness, integrity, honored and respected by the 
world, constitute no claim to acceptance before 
that tribunal which, searching the heart, de- 
clares, "Without holiness no man shall see the 
Lord.'' 

The habit of employing hair-dressers upon 
the Sabbath, of giving "card money" to ser- 
vants, and requiring them to dismiss a visitor 



104 HANNAH MORE. 

with a ''Not at home," Sunday concerts, and 
Sunday diversions were each in turn comment- 
ed upon and condemned, in a spirit at once so 
kind, so candid, so decided, that the book com- 
mended itself alike to reason and consistency, 
and challenged an impartial reading even from 
those most amenable to its reproofs. 

On her next meeting Horace Walpole, he 
took her to task for having exhibited such 
monstrously severe doctrines. " He defended, 
and that was the joke," writes she to her sis- 
ters, ''religion against me, and said he would 
do so against the whole bench of bishops — 
that the fourth commandment was the most 
amiable and merciful law that was ever pro- 
mulgated, as it entirely considers the ease and 
comfort of the hard-laboring poor and beasts 
of burden ; but that it was never intended for 
persons of fashion, who have no occasion for 
rest, as they never do any thing on the other 
days; and indeed, when the law was made 
there were no people of fashion. He really 
])retended to be in earnest, and we parted mu- 
tually unconverted ; he lamenting I had fallen 
into the error of puritanical strictness, and f 
lamenting he is a person of fashion, for whom 
the ten commandments are not made !" 



FIRST FRUITS. 105 

The book made its way: when the second 
edition was issued it sold in little more than 
a week ; the third in a few hours ; and seven 
large editions disappeared in a few months : 
extensively read and circulated, it did not fail 
to exercise a vast influence in the circles for 
whom it was chiefly intended ; its admonitions 
were heard and heeded j several of these cus- 
toms fell into disrepute, and at last were en- 
tirely abandoned. For these beneficial changes 
society is indebted to Miss Hannah More. 

Two years afterwards an ''Estimate of the 
Eeligion of the Fashionable World" appeared, 
striking deep at the false principles which gov- 
ern men in their daily lives, and laying bare 
the inconsistencies and hollow professions of 
those who bore the Christian name. 

The estimate is full of sound, clear, and 
discriminating views, applicable quite as much 
to our time as it was to the spirit and tenden- 
cies of eighty years ago. 

"The present age," she says, ''may justly 
be called the age of benevolence. Liberality 
flows with a full tide through a thousand chan- 
nels. There is scarcely a newspaper that does 
not record some meeting of men of fortune for 
the most salutary purposes. The noble and 



108 HANNAH MORE. 

numberless structures for the relief of distress, 
which are the ornament and glory of our me- 
tropolis, proclaim species of munificence un- 
known to former ages. Subscriptions are easily 
solicited. 

'' Allowing the boasted superiority of mod- 
ern benevolence, it might be well to inquire 
w^hether the diffusion of this branch of charity, 
though the most lovely offspring of religion, 
be yet any positive proof of the prevalence of 
religious principle ; and whether it be not the 
fashion rather to consider benevolence as a 
substitute for Christianity than as an evidence 
of it?" 

Are not these questions pertinent also to 
us in our day ? 

'' It seems to be one of the reigning errors 
among some," she continues, " to reduce all 
religion into benevolence, and all benevolence 
into alms-giving. The wide and comprehen- 
sive idea of Christian charity is compressed 
into the slender compass of a little pecuniary 
relief. This species of benevolence is indeed a 
bright gem among the ornaments of a Chris- 
tian, but by no means furnishes all the jewels 
of ^a crown which derives its lustre from the 
associated radiance of every Christian grace. 



FIRST FRUITS. lOT 

"The mere casual benevolence of any man 
can have little claim to solid esteem; nor does 
any charity deserve the name which does not 
grow out of a steady conviction that it is his 
bounden duty ; which does not spring from a 
settled propensity to obey the whole will of 
God ; which is not therefore made a part of 
the general plan of his conduct; and which 
does not lead him to order the whole scheme 
of his affairs with an eye to it. 

''He therefore who does not habituate 
himself to certain interior restraints, who does 
not live in a regular course of self-renuncia- 
tion, will not be likely often to perform acts of 
beneficence, when it becomes necessary to con- 
vert to such purposes any of that time or money 
which appetite, temptation, or vanity solicit 
him to divert to other purposes, 

"And surely he who seldom sacrifices one 
darling indulgence, who does not subtract one 
gratification from the incessant round of his 
enjoyments, when the indulgence w^ould ob- 
struct his capacity of doing good, or when the 
sacrifice would enlarge his power, does not 
deserve the name of benevolent. And for such 
an unequivocal criterion of charity, to whom 
are we to look but to the conscientious Chris- 



108 HANNAH MORE. 

tian ? No other spirit but that by which he is 
governed can subdue self-love ; and where self- 
love is the predominant passion, benevolence 
can have but a feeble or an accidental do- 
minion. 

"Now if we look around and remark the 
excesses of luxury, the costly diversions, and 
the intemperate dissipation in which numbers 
of professing Christians indulge, can any 
stretch of candor, can even that tender senti- 
ment by which we are enjoined 'to hope' and 
to * believe all things,' enable us to hope and 
believe that such are actuated by a spirit of 
Christian benevolence, merely because we see 
them perform some casual acts of charity, 
which the spirit of the world can contrive to 
make extremely compatible with a voluptuous 
life, and the cost of which, after all, bears but 
little proportion to that of any one vice, or 
even vanity?" 

The whole treatise is worth a thorough 
reading, abounding as it does with good sense 
and sound piety. The Bishop of London de- 
clared there were few persons in Great Britain 
who could write a book conveying so much 
evangelical morality, and so much genuine 
C) ristianity, in such neat and elegant language, 



FIRST FRUITS. 109 

and predicted that the book would find its way 
into every fine lady's library, and if not into 
her heart and manners, the fault would be her 

own. 

A letter from Mrs. Chapone thus expresses 

ner commendation: 

''The same good gentleman, my dea.^ mad- 
am, who some time ago gave his excellent 
thoughts to 'the Great,' has again made a 
powerful effort for their reformation, which 
they receive with as much avidity as if they 
meant to be amended by it: indeed, he has 
wisely recommended it to their taste by every 
charm and ornament of eloquence. 

" He has been so obliging as to send me a 
copy of his admirable book, and as I do not 
know his name and address, I take the liberty 
of applying to you— who are, I believe, pretty 
Avell acquainted with him, though probably not 
aware of half his merits— to beg you will con- 
vey to him my grateful acknowledgments for 
his favor, and assure him that he continually 
rises in my esteem by the faithful zeal with 
which he lays out the talents intrusted to him 
at the highest interest; and I will venture to 
confess, gentleman though he be, that I sin- 
cerely love and honor him, and wish the most 



no HANNAH MORE. 

perfect success to all his laudab'.e under- 
takings. 

** We long for you in town, my dear Miss 
"More ; hasten and enjoy the applause your lay 
friend has gained, and to which his own heart 
Liust bear testimony.'' 

Two choice spirits had been added to her 
list of friends, Rev. John Newton and William 
Wilberforce, both of whom quickened her in the 
new and honorable career opening before her. 

Of Wilberforce and the great subject that 
first linked them together, she thus writes to 
Mrs. Carter: 

"This most important cause, the project to 
abolish the slave-trade in Africa, has very 
much occupied my thoughts this summer; tho 
young gentleman, Mr. Wilberforce, who has 
embarked in it with the zeal of an apostle, has 
been much with me, and engaged all my little 
interest and all my affections in it. It is to 
be brought before Parliament in the spring. 
Above one hundred members have promised 
their votes. My dear friend, be sure to can* 
". ass everybody who has a heart. It is a sub- 
ject too ample for a letter, and I shall have a 
great deal to say to you on it when we meet. 
To my feelings, it is the most interesting sub* 



FIRST FRUITS. Ill 

ject which was ever discussed in the annals of 
humanity.'^ 

At twenty-six "Wilberforce was a meraler 
of Parliament, master of an ample fortune, sur- 
rounded by friends and flatterers, treading a 
path sown with temptations, pleasures, and 
vices, all tending to corrupt the morals and 
mislead the judgment. On a continental tour 
to recruit during a recess of Parliament, in 
company with a friend, a little book became 
the companion of their journey — a little book 
which asked no favors, uttered no flatteries, 
and could expect little countenance from one 
like Wilberforce. ''It is one of the best lit- 
tle books ever written though," said his friend, 
who respected its bravery and truth. ''Let 
us read it then," replied Wilberforce; and so 
the two journeyed and read. "I will search 
the Scriptures and see if these things are so," 
said Wilberforce, as he read and was aston- 
ished. The book was Doddridge's Else and 
Progress of Eeligion in the Soul, whose appeals 
and persuasions, whose rebukes and denuncia- 
tions the young man found recorded and re- 
iterated on every page of the Bible. Wilber- 
force saw his danger, and fled for refuge to 
the cross of Christ. 



112 HANNAH MORE. 

Iiiimediately on liis return to England ho 
sought the spiritual guidance of John Newton. 
Wilberforce soon appeared a changed man. 
In his conse€ration to the service of his divine 
Master, there was no reserve or compromise , 
he gave up himself and his all: ''Henceforth 
let me do with my might wdiile the day lasts/' 
was the sleepless endeavor of his life. 

A society for the reformation of public 
morals was soon set on foot through his instru- 
mentality, which helped greatly to check the 
spread of blasphemous and indecent publica- 
tions, and was the source of many kindred 
schemes for the public good. 

But the abolition of the slave-trade was the 
great work which must immortalize Wilber- 
force, and at twenty-eight, 1787, he allied him- 
self to its interests. While making a short 
sojourn at Bath for the benefit of its waters, 
during the autumn of this year, he records of 
himself, "I believe one cause of my having 
fallen so short, is my having aimed no higher, 
llemember, thy situation abounding in com- 
forts requires thee to be peculiarly on thy 
guard, lest when thou hast eaten and art full, 
thou forgettest God;'' yet Miss More, who 
now passed much time in his society, de- 



FIRST FRUITS. 113 

clares, ''This young gentleman's chitracter is 
one of the most extraordinary I ever knew 
for talents, virtue, and piety. It is difficult 
not to grow wiser and better every time one 
converses with him." 

The enormities of the slave traffic had long 
attracted the attention of thoughtful and feel- 
ing minds, both in England and America. Sev- 
en years before, Mr. Burke had nearly deter- 
mined to bring the subject before the English 
Parliament, having sketched a bill to provide 
for the immediate amelioration of its severities 
as well as for its ultimate extinction ; the meas- 
ure, however, he abandoned, from a conviction 
that it would prove unpopular and ruinous to 
his party. 

Meanwhile much was done to arouse and 
inform the public mind. In May, 1787, sev- 
eral gentlemen met together in London, and 
formed themselves into a committee to collect 
information and raise funds for promoting the 
abolition of the trade. Over this body Gran- 
ville Sharpe presided, wdiile Clarkson, Avith his 
untiring zeal, was kindling the public con- 
science against it. 

And now the subject is to be laid before 
Parliament — where is the man of moral mettle 



114 HANNAH MORE. 

to undertake it ? No man of party connection 
or political ambition dared engage in a work of 
such doubtful and dangerous issues. It must 
be undertaken at his own peril, depending 
alone on the righteousness of his cause, for 
commercial power and self-interest, wealth and 
long usage were all too ready to defend it. 
Wilberforce was the man. How bravely he 
battled, and how glorious the issue, the world 
knows well. 

Among the publications of the day to 
arouse and enlist the public sympathies, "The 
Slave-trade," a little poem, came from the pen 
of Hannah More. 



LABORS AMONG THE POOR. 116 



CHAPTER IX. 

LABORS AMONG THE POOR— SUNDAY- 
SCHOOLS. 

On New-year's day of 1789, Miss More is 
dining at Berkeley-square, Mrs. Montagu hav- 
ing assembled around her a few of the Blues, 
among whom we recognize the familiar face of 
Mrs. Boscawen. 

Mrs. Yesey was in that state of illness 
which left nothing to hope — her mind was 
gone. 

''Ah," sighed Miss More on visiting her, 
'' it is melancholy to look at this house, where 
I have seen so many agreeable people, and 
heard so much pleasant conversation, and made 
so many friendships, and think that its mis- 
tress is bereft of her faculties. What a call 
for serious reflection ! I want to get my heart 
more affected with feeling for the sorrows of 
others, and with gratitude for my own mer- 
cies.'^ 

She soon after went down to Hampton, 
where she passed a few weeks each year to 
cheer the widowed heart of Mrs. Garrick. 



116 HANNAH MORE. 

The exciting topic of the spring was the slave 
question, about to be laid before Parliament. 
Wilberforce went to Teston to consult his 
advisers and marshal his forces for the ap- 
proaching debate. ''He with the whole junto 
of abolitionists are slaving it till two o'clock 
every morning/' declares Mrs. Bouverie. "I 
hope Teston will be the Eunnymede of the 
negroes," ejaculates Miss More, '"and the 
great charter of African liberty will be com- 
pleted : the fate of Africa now trembles in the 
balance. '^ 

On the 12th of May, in a speech of three 
hours of surpassing eloquence, Wilberforce 
opened the debate in the House of Commons, 
denouncing the slave-trade as a national ini- 
quity, and tracing with masterly power its de- 
structive effects upon Africa, upon its victims, 
and upon the colonies. Yiewed from the ele- 
vated height of a common humanity and a 
Christian civilization, he saw its horrors and 
injustice in all their length, breadth, and 
depth, and his soul glowed with the magnitude 
of the subject. Pitt, Burke, and Fox gave 
him a strong and eloquent support, each unani^ 
mously declaring that the slave-trade was a 
disgrace to the country, and that nothing but 



LABORS AMONG THE TOOR. Ill 

its entire abolition could satisfy the demands 
of justice and humanity. It was a glorious 
night for England. Principles familiar to us 
us household words were then broached as 
dangerous and startling innovations, and were 
mot by a powerful opposition from the callous, 
the timid, and the self-interested. 

Miss More soon left these exciting scenes 
for a June flitting to Eosedale, Mrs. Bosca- 
wen's new villa at Richmond, "and I am sit- 
ting," she closes a letter to Martha, "on the 
very seat where Thomson wrote his Seasons." 
Then followed a visit to Sandleford, whose 
Gothic windows, Grecian wit, and British oaks, 
could not ward off five days of unrelenting 
headache, to which Miss More from early life 
was subject; next a sail down the Wye, in 
company with Mr.and Miss Wilberforce ; next 
at Stoke, dwelling in sober magnificence with 
a certain dowager duchess, where "a little 
more discretion and a little less fancy were 
proper and decorous," as she tells us. 

Hannah and Martha are now at Cowslip 
G reen : the retreat is enlivened by a day from 
Mrs. Montagu, a week from Mrs. Garrick, 
both of whom came to try the benefit of Bath 
waters, and a fortnight from Mrs. Kennicott, 



118 HANNAH MORE. 

*'who with wonderful readiness accommodated 
herself to the quiet, simple life of their little 
cottage ;" then came a vacation week from the 
elder sisterhood, and last, though not least, the 
Wilberforces made a ramble to the Green. 

Among the interesting features of the sur- 
rounding scenery, rose the bold and romantic 
cliffs of Cheddar, forming a picturesque per- 
spective towards the south ten miles from Cow- 
slip G-reen. Among these cliffs were scenes of 
wild beauty and solemn grandeur, yawning 
caverns, damp hollows, and bald peaks, which 
made them the summer resort of many a trav- 
eller. 

The sisters begged Wilberforce not to leave 
Wrington without a visit to these wonders of 
the region. Patty was eloquent, and urged 
the gratification which the drive would give 
to a mind like his : a day was fixed, then giv- 
en up ; the cliffs were discussed at the break- 
fast-table the next morning, until their guest 
was prevailed upon to go. 

On his return, Patty ran into the parlor, 
triumphantly inquiring how he liked the Cliffs. 

''Very fine," he replied ; '' but the poverty 
and distress of the people are dreadful." 

"This was all that passed," said Patty, in 



LABORS AMONG THE POOR. 119 

relating the circumstance. " Wilberforce soon 
retired to his room, and dismissed even his 
reader. I said to Hannah and his sister that 
1 feared he was not well. The cold chiijken 
and wine put into the carriage for his dinner 
were returned untouched. Mr. Wilberforce 
appeared at supper, seemingly refreshed with 
a higher feast than we had sent with him. 
The servant at his desire was dismissed, when 
immediately he began: 'Miss Hannah More, 
something must be done for Cheddar.^ 

"He then gave us a particular account of 
his day, of the inquiries he had made respect- 
ing the poor: there was no resident minister, 
no manufactory, nor did. there appear any 
dawn of comfort, either temporal or spiritual. 
The possibility and method of assisting them 
were discussed till a late hour: it was then 
decided in a few words, by Mr. Wilberforce's 
exclaiming, 'If you will be at the trouble, I 
will be at the expense.' 

"Something commonly called an impulse 
crossed my heart, that told me it was God's 
work, and it would do: and though I never 
nave, and probably never shall recover the 
same emotion, yet it is my business to water 
it with watchfulness. 



120 IIANXAH MORE. 

''Mr. Wilberforce and his sister left us in 
a day or two. We turned many schemes in 
our head every possible way; at length those 
measures were adopted which led to the for- 
mation of the different schools." 

The Cliffs of Cheddar at this time were 
inhabited by a squalid, ignorant, half-savage 
people, dwelling in the caves and fissures of 
the rocks, and earning a miserable subsistence 
by selling roots, stalactites, and other mineral 
productions to the travellers who visited them. 

The hearts of the sisters had already yearn- 
ed over the destitution and wretchedness of 
this forlorn community, and they readily re- 
sponded to the call. Home missionary work 
of this kind was then comparatively new: 
Eobert Raikes had begun to bless Gloucester 
with the Sunday-school, and two hundred and 
fifty thousand children were already enjoying 
its privileges, yet the inestimable benefits of 
the institution were not yet widely known or 
fully realized ; old Brentford also was reaping 
a harvest of good from the warm-hearted 
efforts of good Mrs. Trimmer. These labors 
had received Hannah More's cordial sympathy 
and warm approval : a similar field was now 
open to her, and she instantly determined to 



SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. 121 

0(cupy it. Accompanied by Patty, she ex- 
pbred tlie region, a graphic account of which 
i^ho pens to Wilberforce in a letter dated 
(George Hotel, Cheddar. 

"Though this is but a romantic place, aa 
my friend Matthe\y well observed, yet you 
would laugh to see the bustle I am in. I was 
told that we should meet with great opposi- 
tion if I did not try to propitiate the chief 
despot of the village, who is very rich and 
very brutal : so I ventured into the den of 
this monster, in a country as savage as him- 
self, near Bridge water. He begged that I 
would not think of bringing any religion into 
the country; it was the worst thing in the 
world for the poor, it made them lazy and 
useless. In vain I represented to him that 
they would be more industrious as they were 
better principled ; and that for my own part, 
I had no selfish views in what I was doing. 
He gave me to understand that he knew the 
world too well to believe either the one or the 
.Uher. Somewhat dismayed to find that my 
auccess bore no proportion to my submissions, 
I was almost discouraged from more visits; 
but 1 found that friends must be secured at all 
events ; for if these rich savages set their faces 



122 IIAXXAII MORE. 

against us, and influenced the poor people, I 
saw that nothing but hostilities would ensue ; 
so I made eleven more of these agreeable 
visits ; and as I improved in the art of can- 
vassing, had better success. Miss Wilberforeo 
would have been shocked had she seen the 
petty tyrants whose insolence I stroked and 
tamed, the ugly children I praised, the point- 
ers and spaniels I caressed, the cider I com- 
mended, and the wine I swallowed. After 
these irresistible flatteries, I inquired of each 
if he could recommend me to a house; and 
said that I had a little plan which I hoped 
would secure their orchards from being rob- 
bed, their rabbits from being shot, their game 
from being stolen, and which might lower the 
poor-rates. If effect be the best proof of elo- 
quence, then mine was a good speech, for I 
gained at length the hearty concurrence of the 
whole people, and their promise to discourage 
or favor the poor in proportion as they were 
negligent or attentive in sending their chil- 
dren. Patty, who is with me, says she has 
good hopes that the hearts of some of these rich 
poor wretches may be touched: they are as 
ignorant a? the beasts that perish, intoxicated 
every day before dinner, and plunged into 



SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. 123 

sucli vices as make me begin to think London 
a virtuous place. By their assistance I pro- 
cured immediately a good house, which, when 
a partition is taken down and a window added, 
will receive a great number of children. The 
house and an excellent garden of almost an 
acre of ground, I have taken at once for six 
guineas and a half a year. I have ventured 
to take it for seven years. There is courage 
for you. It is to be put in order immediately, 
'for the night cometh ;' and it is a comfort to 
think that though I may be in dust and ashes 
in a few weeks, yet by that time this business 
will be in actual motion. I have written to 
different manufacturing towns for a mistress, 
but can get nothing hitherto. As to the mis- 
tress for the Sunday-school and the religious 
part, I have employed Mrs. Esterbrook, of 
whose judgment I have a good opinion. I hope 

]\liss W will not be frightened, but I am 

afraid she must be called a Methodist. 

"I asked the farmers if they had no resi- 
dent curate. They told me they had a right 
to insist on one; which right they confessed 
ihey had never ventured to exercise, for fear 
their tithes would be raised. I blushed for my 
species. The glebe-house is good for my pur- 



124 HANNAH MORE. 

poses. The curate lives at Wells, twelve miles 
distant. They have only service once a week, 
and there is scarcely an instance of a poor per- 
son being visited or prayed with." 

In spite of Miss Hannah's repeated head- 
aches, and Miss Patty's ill-health, so promptly 
and energetically did they pursue their labors, 
that the first of October witnessed the opening 
of the school in Cheddar, by Miss Hannah in 
person. The principal people from the parish- 
es far and near came to witness the operation 
of a scheme, as it was regarded, to reform 
Botany Bay. 

''It was an affecting sight," says she. "Sev- 
eral of the grown up youth had been tried at 
the late assizes, three were the children of a 
person lately condemned to be hanged ; many 
thieves, all ignorant, profane, and vicious be- 
yond belief. Of this banditti we have enlisted 
one hundred and seventy; and when the cler- 
gyman, a hard man, who is also the magis- 
trate, saw these creatures kneeling around us, 
whom he had seen but to commit or to punish 
in some way, he burst into tears. I can do 
them but little good, I fear, but the grace of 
God can. 

*'Have you never felt your mind," she 



SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. 125 

asks Wilberforce, ''now and then raised and 
touched by some very trifling circumstance ? 
So I felt on Sunday. Some musical gentle- 
man, drawn from a distance by curiosity— -just 
as I was coming out of church with my ragged 
regiment, much depressed to think how little 
good I could do them — quite unexpectedly 
struck up that beautiful and animated anthem. 
'Inasmuch as ye have done it to one of the 
least of these, ye have done it unto me.' -' 

To the Sunday-school was soon added a 
school during the week, where sewing, knit- 
ting, and spinning were taught to the girls. A 
faithful and excellent woman was engaged as 
mistress of this school, who, with her daughter, 
entered completely into Miss More's plans; 
medicine, clothing, and small sums of money 
were from time to time placed at her disposal 
to distribute among the sick and needy, ac- 
cording to her judgment. 

Two years after Miss More's first visit to 
Cheddar, she received a zealous ally in the 
Rev. Thomas Drewitt, who became a resident 
curate among this people, strengthening her 
hands, and encouraging her heart by all the 
means in his power. 

Great as was the work for Cheddar, Ched- 



]26 HANNAn MORE. 

dar did not bound their hopes or exhaust their 
energies: other fields opened before them, and 
they went boldly forward bearing the precious 
seed; thirteen parishes were found equally 
destitute of the means of social comfort or re- 
ligious improvement. In Shipham the women 
knew nothing of industry or frugalit}^, the 
young men spent the Sabbath in sporting and 
hunting, and the children grew up in naked- 
ness and vagrancy. At Axbridge the curate 
was intoxicated six times in the week, and 
very frequently was prevented from preaching 
by two black eyes, honestly earned by fight- 
ing; the ale-house was more frequented than 
the church, the laws of cards or quoits were 
better understood than the ten commandments, 
while good order and domestic peace were 
things unheard of. 

"The lower classes 2iVQi fated to be poor, ig- 
norant, and wicked,'' said the petty landhold- 
ers; "and wise as you are, you cannot alter 
what is decreed.'' "Besides," added another, 
**I like the parish very well as it is; if the 
yo'ing men come and gamble before my house 
Sunday afternoon, I have only to go out and 
curse and swear at them, and they will march 
off: what can one desire more?" 



SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. 127 

Happily for the parishes, there vere those 
who did desire more ; there were time and tal- 
ent and money that had been consecrated to 
(he Lord's service, and were to be spent for 
(heir good: before the year closed, schools 
were established in nine different parishes; 
and five hundred scholars were enjoying the 
benefits of Sabbath-day instruction. 

From Bath, Wilberforce w^rote to Miss 
More: "I have more money than time, and if 
you or your sister will condescend to be my 
almoner, you will enable me to employ some of 
the superfluity it has pleased God to give me, 
to some good purpose. Sure am I, that they 
who subscribe attention and industry furnish 
articles of more sterling and intrinsic value. 
Besides, I have a rich banker in London, Mr. 
Henry Thornton, whom I cannot oblige so 
much as by drawing on him for purposes like 
these. I shall take the liberty of enclosing a 
draft for £40 j but this is only for a begin- 
ning." 

''I joyfully accept your office of almoner,'* 
replies Hannah, " on condition that you will 
find fault with and direct me with as little 
scruple as I shall have in disposing of your 
money. Patty is very proud at being admitted 



128 HANNAH MORE. 

into the confederacy, and at being appointed 
superintendent at Cheddar; a title, however, 
she will only hold by delegation in my too 
long absence, for I like my dignity too well to 
allow her to be more than vice-queen. 

*' What comfort I feel, in looking round on 
these starving and half-naked multitudes, to 
think that by your liberality many of them 
maybe fed and clothed: and Oh, if but one 
soul is rescued from eternal misery, how may 
we rejoice over it in another state, where per- 
haps it may not be one of our smallest felici- 
ties that our friendship was turned to some 
useful account in advancing the good of others, 
and as I humbly presume to hope, in improv- 
ing ourselves for that life which shall have no 
end. 

"Mr. Henry Thornton, I think, belongs to 
the Society of Sunday-schools in London for 
assisting necessitous villages with books, etc. 
There cannot be a fairer claim on them than 
the present. If you and he approve it, per- 
haps we may apply for a quantity of New 
Testaments, Prayer-books, and little Sunday- 
school books, with a few Bibles. The sooner 
we get them the better ; otherwise, you or he 
will be so good as to order a supply from the 



SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. 129 

Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge^ 
to which I do not belong, or I would send 
for them. They may be directed to Park- 
street.'' 

To Mrs. Carter she writes, ''It is grievous 
to reflect, that while we are sending missiona- 
ries to India, our villages are in pagan dark- 
ness, and upon many of them scarcely a ray of 
Christianity has shone. I speak from the most 
minute and diligent examination. I have been 
constantly occupied for a long time in trying 
what my poor abilities and my small influence 
over others richer and better, can bring about. 
In one particular spot, for instance, there are 
six large parishes without so much as a resi- 
dent curate. Through the kind assistance of a 
friend or two, I am endeavoring to fix schools 
and other little institutions in the most desti- 
tute of these places, and as they are from six 
to ten miles distant, you will judge that it 
employs a good deal of my time. I have the 
satisfaction to tell you that Cheddar, our first 
establishment, goes on prosperously. We have 
a great many children in that parish only, and 
by tlie ability and piety of our teachers, their 
improvement surpasses my warmest hopes. I 
make no apology to you, my dear friend, for 

6* 



130 HANNAH MORE. 

the freedom of these details. Alas, there are 
so few to whom one can speak or write upon 
SQch subjects. 

"Poor Patty is a great sufferer. Our 
friend Mrs. Garrick, who is still at Bristol 
Wells, has been to see us several times: she 
does not think herself quite recovered. To 
those who have enjoyed during a lifetime per- 
fect health, illness is particularly alarming. 
Let you and me, my dear friend, number our 
infirm health among the merciful providences 
which have been dispensed to us. How much 
more do we enjoy our intervals of ease than 
those who know no pains ; and I hope we may 
be able to turn the pain itself to a good ac- 
count. 'All things work together for good to 
them that love God.' 

'* I wish you could see my roses. I have a 
double end in such a wish, for then I should 
see you. I am truly and faithfully, my dearest 
Mrs. Carter, yours." 

At this time the elder sisters retired from 
their school, after a professional experience of 
nearly thirty years, highly creditable to them- 
selves, and amply rewarded by an extensive 
patronage, which enabled them to build a fine 
house in Bath, and spend their later years in 



SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. 131 

tlie enjoyment of every comfort wliicli compe- 
tency and piety can bestow. 

The Mendip schools were dear to the sis- 
terhood : each bore her share in their labors, 
fatigues, anxieties, and conflicts, sustaining and 
encouraging Hannah in the conspicuous and 
important part which her talents and energy 
awarded her. 

In the establishment of these schools, the 
difficulties to be overcome needed all the res- 
olution and judgment of minds like theirs. 
Though the field was in a land of Bibles and 
Sabbaths, yet a preparatory work, not unlike 
that wdiich is necessary on heathen ground, 
was needed here ; the people whom they wish- 
ed to benefit, had to be conciliated: fearing 
not God, or regarding man, they neither de- 
sired nor cared for the blessings which Chris- 
tian love would bestow : there were the preju- 
dices and opposition of the small farmers, the 
hardness and guilt of the poor, the hatred of 
the ale-houses, the indifference of the church ; 
a general ignorance and incapability of appre- 
ciating the nature of the good to be conferred 
upon them ; the difficulty also of obtaining suit- 
able teachers, prudent, discreet, and pious. 
*-Add to these, '^ said Miss Hannah, after the 



132 HANNAH MORE. 

good work was in progress, '*' the teaching of 
the teachers, which is not the least part of the 
work : having about thirty masters and mis- 
tresses, with under-teachers, one has continu- 
ally to bear with the faults, the ignorance, the 
prejudices, humors, misfortunes, and debts of 
all these poor, well-meaning people. I hope, 
however, it teaches one forbearance, and it 
serves to put me in mind how much God has 
to bear from me. I now and then comfort 
Patty, in our journeys home at night, by say- 
ing, if we do these people no good, I hope we 
do some little good to ourselves." 

But Miss More neither flinched nor falter- 
ed in her arduous service : she who had not 
hesitated to speak plain but unwelcome truths 
to the gay and great, would shrink from no 
personal fatigue, nor be disheartened either by 
opposition or indifference. 

"For the first year,'^ said Miss More, in 
speaking of the mother and daughter whom 
she had engaged as teachers for Cheddar — and 
tlie difficulties presented at Cheddar were like 
tliose of every other place where schools had 
been planted — -"these excellent women had to 
struggle with every kind of opposition, so that 
they were frequently tempted to give up their 



SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. 133 

laborious employ. They well entitled them- 
selves to £30 per annum salary and some little 
presents. They visited the sick, chiefly with 
a view to their spiritual concerns: but we con- 
cealed the true motive at first: and in order to 
procure them access to the homes and hearts 
of the people, they were furnished not only 
^viih medicine, but with a little money, which 
they administered with great prudence. They 
soon gained their confidence, read and prayed 
to them, and in all respects did what a good 
clergyman does in other parishes. 

" At the end of the year we perceived that 
much ground had been gained among the poor ; 
but the success was attended with no small 
persecution from the rich, though some of 
them grew more favorable. 

''I now ventured to have a sermon read 
after school on a Sunday evening, inviting a 
few of the parents, and keeping the grown-up 
children ; the sermons were of the most awak- 
ening sort, and soon produced sensible effects. 
It was at first thought a very methodistical 
measure, and we got a few broken windows ; 
but quiet perseverance, and the great prudence 
with which the zeal of our good mistresses was 
regulated, carried us through. Many repro- 



134 HANNAH MORE. 

bates were by the blessing of God awakened, 
and many swearers and Sabbath-breakers re- 
claimed. The number.both of young and old 
scholars increased, and the daily life and con- 
versation of many seemed to keep pace with 
their religious professions on the Sunday. 

*'We now began to distribute Bibles, Pray- 
er-books, and other good books, but never at 
random, and only to those who had given some 
evidence of their loving and deserving them. 
They are always made the reward of superior 
learning, or some other merit, as we can have 
no other proof that they will be read. Those 
who manifest the greatest diligence, get the 
books of most importance. During my absence 
in the winter, a great many will learn twenty 
or thirty chapters, psalms, and hymns. 

"Finding: the wants and distresses of these 
poor people uncommonly great — for their wa- 
ges are but one shilling per day — and fearing 
to abuse the bounty of my friends by too in- 
discriminate liberality, it occurred to me that 
I could make what I had to bestow go much 
Inrther, by instituting clubs or societies for 
tlie women, as is done for the men in other 
places. It was no small trouble to accomplirh 
ibis; for though the subscription was only 



SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. 135 

iliree lialf-pence a week, it was more than they 
could always raise ; yet the object appeared 
so important, that I found it would be good 
economy privately to give widows and other 
very poor women money to pay their club.^ 
After combating many prejudices, we carried 
this point, which we took care to involve in 
the general system, by making it subservient 
to the schools, the rules of the club restraining 
the women to such and such points of conduct 
respecting the schools. In some parishes we 
have one hundred and fifty poor women thus 
associated ; you may guess who are the patron- 
esses." 

These clubs proved a great blessing to the 
little communities in which they were estab- 
lished, by helping the poor to husband their 
small resources for a time of need, and teach- 
ing them the importance and advantage of 
economy: in sickness, a member received 
three shillings a week; for lying-in, seven shil- 
lings and sixpence. 

A girl trained in their schools and sus- 
taining a virtuous character, was presented on 
her marriage-day with five shillings, a pair of 
white stockings, and a new Bible. 

*' Henceforth," says Miss More, ''I desiro 



136 HANNAH MORE. 

to have little to do with the great. I have 
devoted the remnant of my life to the poor 
and those that have no helper; and if I can do 
them no good, I can at least sympathize with 
them ; and I know it is some comfort for a for- 
lorn creature to be able to say, 'There is some- 
thing that cares for me.' The simple idea of 
being cared for has always appeared to me a 
very cheering one ; besides, the affection they 
have for me is a strong engine with which to 
lift them to a love of higher things. Alas, I 
might do more and better ; pray for me." 

When at Wrington, which now began to 
be the greater part of the year, accompanied 
by one of her sisters, usually Patty, she en- 
deavored to visit at least three parishes every 
Sabbath, riding from ten to thirty miles, often 
enduring thirteen hours' exposure to the weath- 
er, and frequently passing the night at some of 
the villages, and all this for upwards of twenty 
years. "What heroic devotion and inflexibility 
of purpose does this not reveal, at an age too 
when most women are too willing to retire from 
arduous labor in their Master's service, and beg 
to be excused from the call of Christian duty. 

How beautiful among the cottages are tho 
feet of her who bringeth glad tidings ! 



NEWTON IN SORROW. 131 



CHAPTER X. 

NEWTON IN SORROW— MENDIP FEAST. 

Mr. Newton is smitten, and he seeks the 
Christian sympathy of Hannah More. His 
wife, the idol of his early days, the companion 
of his later years, is no more. 

" I could begin every letter," ran his, ''with 
the words of David, 'Oh magnify the Lord 
with me, and let us exalt his name together.' 
Great has been his goodness. I am a wonder 
to many, and to myself. You perhaps know, 
madam, from what you have read of mine, and 
possibly from what you have seen in me, that 
my attachment to my dearest wife was great, 
3^ea excessive, yea idolatrous. It was so when 
it began. I think no writer of romance ever 
imagined more than I realized. It was so 
when I married. She was to me precisely — 
liow can I write it? — in the place of Godc la 
all places and companies my thoughts ivere 
full of her. I did every thing for her sake ; 
and if she was absent — for I made three long 



138 HANNAH MORE. 

voyages to Africa afterwards — I cciild take 
pleasure in nothing. So narrow were ray no- 
tions of happiness at this time, that I had no 
idea that I was capable of any thing greater 
or better than of being always with her. By 
degrees, He who has the only right to my 
heart, and who alone can fill it, was pleased 
to make me sensible of his just claim, and my 
idol was brought some steps lower down ; yet 
still I fear there was somewhat of the golden 
calf in my love, from the moment that joined 
our hands to the moment of separation. She 
was certainly my chief temporal blessing, and 
the providential hinge upon which all the prin- 
cipal events of my life have turned. Before 
I was four years old, she was sent into the 
world to be my companion, and to soften the 
rugged path of life. The difiQculties in the 
way of our union were so many, so great, so 
apparently insuperable, that my hope of ob- 
taining her seemed little less chimerical than if 
I had expected the crown of Poland. Yet at 
the proper time it took place. Fond as I was 
of her, I knew that inconstancy and mutabilit^^ 
are primary attributes of the human heart de- 
praved, if left to itself; but as the providence 
of God joined our hands, a secret blessing from 



NEWTON IN SORROW. 139 

bim cemented our hearts. We certainly un- 
derstood Thorns jn when he says, 

' Enamored more as more remembrance swells 
With many a proof of recollected love.' 

Further, though I had deserved to forfeit her 
every day of my life, yet He spared her to me 
more than forty years; and lastly, which is 
the crowning mercy, when he recalled the 
loan — for, strictly speaking, she was not mine, 
but his — he made me willing to resign her. 
Through the long course of her very trying 
illness he supported me. Though my feelings 
were often painful, I believe a stranger who 
had seen me in company, or heard me from 
the pulpit, would hardly have suspected what 
was passing at home. On the evening of the 
15th instant I watched her, with a candle in 
my hand, for some hours; and when I was 
sure she had breathed her last — which could 
not at once be determined, she went away so 
easily — I kneeled down by her bedside, with 
those who were in the room, and thanked the 
Lord, I trust with all my heart, for her dis- 
mission. I slept this night as well as usual ; 
and in defiance of the laws of tyrant custom, 
I continued to preach while she lay dead in 
the house. We deposited her in our own 



140 HANNAH xMORE. 

vault on the 23d, and last Sunday evening I 
was enabled to preach her funeral sermon, 
from Habakkuk 3 : 17, 18. 

''In writing to you I feel my heart open ; 
I am assured of meeting from you with that 
sympathy and sensibility of which I hope I am 
not myself wholly destitute; and therefore I 
will tattle on. This was not a sudden stroke. 
She did not die by a flash of lightning, by what 
is called accident, nor by those rapid disorders 
which break the thread of life in a few days 
or hours. The Lord gave me time to prepare 
for it; yea, by the gradual train of his dispen- 
sations, he gradually prepared me for it him- 
self. 

"She was confined to the house nearly ten 
years, excepting that in September, 1789, she 
was enabled to go for a month to Southamp- 
ton, and during the last autumn went out every 
evening in a coach, for a little air. But she 
was shut up from the house of God, and from 
visiting her friends, though, till about Septem- 
ber, she could generally receive them at home. 
Indeed, till about that time I did not give up 
all hope of her recovery. But a total loss of 
appetite, or rather, a loathing of food, then took 
place, which soon reduced her to a state of 



NEWTON IN SORROW. 141 

great weakness. In the beginning of October 
she took to her bed, and was soon after, I sup- 
pose from some defect in the spine, deprived of 
all locomotive power. She could neither move 
herself, nor without the greatest difficulty be 
moved — sometimes not so much as to have any 
thing about her changed for a fortnight to- 
gether. Such, my dear madam, was the state 
of my idol : what a rebuke — what a lesson was 
it to me, to see her lie for eight or nine weeks 
in so sad and pitiable a situation! But the 
case was mingled with many merciful allevia- 
tions. Her patience w^as wonderful ; her natu- 
ral spirits as good as when she was in health. 
Often when my eyes were full of tears, she 
has constrained me to smile. When she could 
not move her body, she was thankful that she 
could move her hands, thankful that the Lord 
had laid no more upon her than she could 
bear; and when I once said, 'You are a great 
sufferer,' she replied, 'I do suffer, but not 
greatly.' So to know that we are sinners, and 
so to know the Saviour as to feel both the 
necessity and the liberty of applying to him, 
constitutes that knowledge which chiefly de- 
serves the name ; and this I trust was her priv- 
ilege long before her last illness. But the 



142 HANNAH MORE. 

enemy of our peace found advantage, from the 
weakness of her frame, to distress her with 
doubts which did not so directly apply to her 
own state as to the whole system of trutli. 
She said, 'If there be a Saviour ' — ' If there 
be a God.' In this interval, which lasted near 
a fortnight, there was some abatement of that 
serenity I spoke of, some signs of impatience, 
and she discovered a strong reluctance to the 
thought of dying. Then was my sharpest 
trial; but the cloud gradually wore off, and 
for the last month she spoke of her departure 
with great composure, and seemed perfectly 
reconciled to it. Yet she never recovered 
strength and freedom to speak much to me 
about herself. The Sunday before she died, I 
said, 'If you cannot easily speak, and if your 
mind be at peace, I wish you to signify it by 
holding up your hand.' She immediately held 
it up, and waved it for a little time. This 
from her, who knew the gospel so well, com- 
forted and satisfied me. It reminded me of 
the striking scene in Shakspeare, of Cardinal 
Beaufort, which closes with, 'He dies — but 
gives no sign.' Blessed be God, it was not 
her case. 

*'In the course of the day she asked for 



NEWTON IN SORROW. 143 

me, though I was seldom long or far from her ; 
but her head was so much affected by lying 
many weeks in one position, that though per- 
fectly sensible, she could hardly bear the 
sound of the gentlest voice, or the softest foot- 
steps upon the carpet. I went to her; she 
stroked my face, squeezed my hand, and said, 
*My pretty dear!' an appellation she frequent- 
ly gave me. We both dropped a few tears. 
These were the last words I heard her speak, 
and I could say but little. Such was our last 
farewell. From that night until she obtained 
her release, she gave little sign of life but by 
breathing. 

"Now, my dear madam, I have done. I 
shall trouble you with no more in this strain. 
She is gone ; and may I not add, I am going? 
For though my health was never better than at 
present, I am advancing in my sixty-sixth year. 
What is the world to me now? All the treas- 
ures of the Bank of England could not repair 
my loss, or even abate my sense of it. My 
chief earthly tie to this life is broken; yet I 
thank God I am willing to live while he has 
any service for me to do, or rather, wdiile he 
pleases, whether I can serve him or not, pro- 
vided I am favored with submission to his will 



144 HANNAH MORE. 

I have lost my right hand. He has made me 
willing to part with it, but I must expect to 
miss it often. However, I thank him, I am by 
no means uncomfortable. I am satisfied he 
does all things well ; and though some months 
ago, had it been lawful, I would have redeem- 
ed her life and health by the sacrifice of a limb, 
and thought the purchase cheap ; yet now his 
will is made known by the event, I trust I can 
from the heart say with Fenelon, *I would not 
take up a straw to have things otherwise than 
they are.' Time is short. A new and incon- 
ceivable scene will soon open upon us, and if 
they who now 'sow in tears shall reap in joy,' 
they may smile while they weep. 

"We seem to want some other word by 
which to denote our supreme regard for God, 
than that which expresses our afifcction to 
creatures. When we speak of loving him, it 
must be in a different sense. Creature love is 
a passion ; divine love is a principle. It arises 
from an apprehension of his adorable perfec- 
tions, especially as they are displayed in the 
great work of redemption, without which it is 
impossible for a sinner to love him. 

'' There is a sensibility of feeling in crea- 
ture love, which is no proper standard of our 



NEWTON IN SORHOW. 145 

love to God. This, depending mncli upon con- 
dition and the state of the animal spirits, is 
different in different persons, and in the same 
persons at different times. It is variable as 
the weather, and indeed is often affected by 
the weather and a thousand local circumAstan- 
ces no more in our power than the clouds that 
fly over our heads. It is no uncommon thing 
to judge more favorably of ourselves on this 
point on a bright summer's day, and while con- 
templating a beautiful prospect, than in the 
gloom of winter, or the hurry of Cheapside. 
The high affection of some people may be com- 
pared to a summer's brook after a hasty rain, 
which is full and noisy for a little time, but 
soon becomes dry. But true divine love is 
like a river which always runs, though not 
always with equal, depth and flow, and never 
ceases till it finds the ocean. The best evi- 
dences are, admiration of his way of saving 
sinners, humble dependence on his care, de- 
sire of communion with him in his instituted 
means of grace, submission to the will of his 
providence, and obedience to the dictation of 
his precepts. To keep his commandments, 
and to keep them as His commandments, from 
a sense of his authority and goodness, is the 

H. More. 7 



146 HANNAH MOKE. 

best, the most unsuspicious test of our love to 
Him." 

A year after, Newton comes to Cowslip 
G reen. 

"Pray, ray dear sir," wrote Miss More in 
a note which met him on the way, ''try to di- 
vert your mind from the delights and elegances 
of Teston, before you turn your way towards 
my little thatched cottage, where a quiet cell, 
a few books, a maple dish, and a 'dinner of 
herbs' are all you can in reason expect; but 
then I hope we shall be able to furnish the 
appropriate sauce of 'quietness therewith,' for 
which I trust you will be contented to renounce 
the ^stalled ox' of noisy London." 

He passed a week there in August — a week 
of Christian intercourse, the memory of which 
cheered him on his solitary pilgrimage. 

In passing King Weston's hill, on his home- 
ward journey, nothing in the wide and beauti- 
ful prospect delighted his eye like a glimpse 
of the Mendip Ridge: "Yes, yes, and I was 
so foolish as almost to envy a hill which, if it 
had eyes like me, might look at Cowslip Greeu 
from morning till night." 

Nor is the interest dimmed by the dirt of 
Cheapside, or the duties of Colman-street. 



NEWTON IN SORROW. 147 

''Every Sunday morning," lie writes, "my 
thoughts set out in quest of you and Miss 
Patty, and though I know not what road you 
have taken, I seldom miss finding ^^ou. There 
ih a communion of spirit among the believing 
members of that body of which Christ is the 
living head, which I believe is not impeded by 
local distance.'^ 

*'I assure you,'^ replied Miss More, ''your 
kind wishes and your affectionate remembrance 
of the mountains of Mendip and of the little 
hermitage at the foot of it, are returned with 
great sincerity. Your pipe still maintains its 
station in the black-currant bush, and that hand 
would be deemed very presumptuous and dis- 
respectful which should presume to displace 
it. For my own part, the pipe of Tityrus, 
though in my youthful days I liked it passing 
w^ell, would not now be deemed a more vener- 
able relic; and even the little sick maid Lizzv, 
who gratefully remembers the spiritual com- 
fort you administered to her, often cries out, 
' Oh dear, I hope nobody will break Mr. New- 
ton^s pipe.^ 

"Patty and I remember you as we are 
trotting over the hills. She desires hCi" affec- 
tionate regards, as do all the rest. You would 



148 HAM^AII MORE. 

enjoy the vale of cowslips in tliis renewed 
spring : we have every thing of the golden age 
except the innocence; the garden is full of 
roses as in Jane, and an apple-tree is literally 
covered at the same moment with fruit nearly 
ripe and fresh blossoms.'' 

In order to increase a general interest in 
the schools, and reward the punctual attend- 
ance of the scholars, the ladies busied them- 
selves in preparing a feast, or what w^e should 
call a Sabbath-school picnic, the first of the 
kind perhaps ever held. The spot selected on 
this occasion was on one of the Mendip hills, 
eight miles from Cowslip Green, commanding 
a beautiful and varying prospect of the British 
channel and the Welsh mountains, w^ith quiet 
hamlets in the foreground : the land was fenced 
in, tents pitched, and tables spread; children 
and teachers flocked to the spot at an early 
hour; a large party in wagons started from 
Cowslip Green, while the strangeness of the 
event attracted innumerabte lookers-on with- 
out the enclosure. Psalms were sung, address- 
es made, and nine hundred sat down to a din- 
ner of beef, jolum pudding, and cider; all the 
neighboring clergy were present, and grace 
was said at each table ; the day was fine, and 



MENDIP FEAST. 149 

Miss Patty^s fears speedily subsided before 
the good order and decoriiiii which every- 
where prevailed throughout this iuirnense gath- 
ering. A general chorus of " God save tho 
King" closed the festivities of the day, Miss 
More always inculcating loyalty in her code 
of religious duty. 

The female clubs also had their anniver- 
sary days, when a sermon was preached at the 
parish church, and tea and cakes were served 
by the sisters at an adjoining school-room. 
These feasts, held from time to time, were at- 
tended with the most beneficial results, cre- 
ating self-respect among the poor, and awaken- 
ing stronger sympathy in their behalf among 
those who had power to benefit them. 

A train of carriages, extending no less than 
a mile, frequently left Cowslip Green on such 
occasions, nor did the highest dignitaries in 
church or state disdain the thatched school- 
houses of Cheddar and Shipham. 

On one pleasant summer's day, a gentle- 
man came that way. "How beautiful is this," 
he said, stopping at the gate to survey tho 
rural charms of Cowslip Green. 

Miss Mary More issued from the shrub- 
bery, and invited the stranger in. 



150 HANNAH MORE 

Deliglited vvith the situation and garden, 
lie inquired to whom it belonged. 

*' Hannah More," was the reply. 

His surprise only equalled his pleasure. 
An introduction followed, and Mr. Turner, for 
it was he, willingly became her guest. 

Their long suspended intercourse was re- 
newed, and remained unbroken until his death. 
He became a not unfrequent visitor at the cot- 
tage, and was a delighted spectator of the last 
picnic given by the ladies on the Mendip 
Ridge. 



WILL CHIP AND HIS BRETHREN. 151 

CHAPTER XI. 

WILL CHIP AND HIS BRETHREN. 

The angry clouds of revolution wliicli swept 
over France during tbe latter part of the last 
century, began to darken the English horizon. 
The fond hopes awakened by the assembling 
of the States-general had long since been dis- 
sipated : in place of reform there was revolu- 
tion; confusion and anarchy swiftly followed; 
opinions and principles hostile to order, gov- 
ernment, and religion, were propagated under 
the guise of philosophy and fraternity, seduc- 
ing the unwary by a promised good never to 
be realized. The clubs of France had over- 
turned and overturned, until the throne, the 
state, the church, all civil, social, and moral 
law had been trampled down, and the bleed- 
ing people were left to the reckless fury of 
leaders who knew not God, neither regarded 
man. Wild as was this spirit of change, it 
swept over the English channel, gathering up 
the loose and discordant elements of the Eng- 
lish masses, threatening the peace of society 
and the sUbility of the state. 



152 HANNAH MORE. 

As mucli of tills agitation and discontent 
was grumbling in workshops, and muttering in 
ale-liouses and clubs, and therefore beyond the 
reach of statesmen and below the cognizance 
of law, it must be met, if met at all, on its 
own ground, with its own weapons — English 
sense against French fraternity ; tract and 
pamphlet against tract and pamphlet. Dr. 
Paley was enlisted in the service. He wrote 
''Eeasons for Contentment," and a prebend of 
St. Paul's was his reward. The book aimed 
above the mark: it relieved the anxiety of a 
higher class, but did not quell the tumultuous 
hopes or answer the dangerous sophistry of 
the discontented and seditious. Something 
more direct and practical was v>^anted — some- 
body with quick wit and sound sense, who 
knew the men to be dealt v/ith. At last. Will 
Chip showed himself to the English public. 
Will Chip, With no more than a sling and a 
few smooth stones, ventured forth to meet the 
Goliath of the times. Will Chip makes no 
boasts ; he simply asks to be heard and read : 
he has written " Yillage Politics," a tract, Yory 
brief, and as everybody began to say, on read- 
ing it, very pertinent and very pithy. Book- 
seller Eivington issued it, and his shop is 



WILL CHIP AND EIS BRETHREN. 153 

tlirongccl, for wonderful is the demand for 
" Yillage Politics." Bishops christen it, lords 
bless it, landholders rejoice over it, everybody 
for law and order is thankful for it; it niulti- 
])lies abundantly: one hundred thousand cop- 
ics are circulated through lanes and courts ; it 
speedily makes the circuit of the kingdom ; it 
goes by hosts into Scotland and Ireland; it 
leaps into France, and passes into Italy ; it is 
hawked and peddled ; in hall and cottage "Yil- 
lage Politics" is known and read. "Will Chip 
has proved himself a master-workman ; he is 
thankful and contented, loyal and Christian, 
with a plenty of work to do, and a heart to 
do it. "What is a French Democrat," cries 
Will Chip, "but one who likes to be governed 
by a thousand tyrants, yet can't bear a king ? 
And what is French equality, but every man 
trying to pull down every one that is above 
him ; while, instead of raising those below him 
to his own level, he only makes use of Ihem 
as steps to raise himself to the }>lace of (nose 
he has tumbled down? and French philoso- 
phy, but to believe there is neither God nor 
devil, heaven nor hell? and French benevo- 
lence, but contempt of religion, aversion to 
justice, overturning of law, doubting all man- 



154 HANNAH MORE. 

kind in general, and hating everybody in par- 
ticular? and as for equalization, fraternization, 
inviolability, it is nonsense, gibberish, down- 
right hocus-pocus!" 

Will Chip was a match for the times ; and 
people said that his tact and intelligence did 
more than anybody's else to open the eyes of 
the people to the follies of French politics, and 
set Englishmen considering that, "though they 
had a king, he was so kept in, he could not 
hurt the people if he w^ould ; that they had as 
much liberty as could make them happy, more 
trade and riches than allowed them to be good ; 
the best laws in the world, if they were more 
strictly enforced ; and the best religion in the 
world, if it were but better followed." 

Englishmen began to come to their senses, 
and acknowledge Will Chip told the truth. 
But who was this remarkable fellow, so shrewd, 
so pointed, so seasonable, so posted in "Vil- 
lage Politics" and French policy? Where did 
Will Chip live? The Bishop of London knew, 
for he writes to Mrs. Chip : 

"I have this moment received your hus- 
band's Dialogue, and it is supremely excel- 
lent. I look upon Mr. Chip to be one of the 
finest writers of the age; this work alone will 



WILL CHIP AND HIS BRETHREN. 155 

immortalize him; and what is better still, I 
trust it will help to immortalize the constitu- 
tion. If the sale is as rapid as the book is 
good, Mr. Chip will get an immense income, 
and completely destroy all equality at once. 
How Jack Anvil and Tom Hod will heai' this 
I know not, but I shall rejoice at Mr. Chip's 
elevation, and should be extremely glad at this 
moment to shake him by the hand, and ask 
him to take a family dinner with me. He is 
really a very fine fellow. I have kept your 
secret most religiously. 

*'Your very sincere and faithful 

''B. LONDON." 

But secrets, like murder, will out. Mrs. 
Boscawen suspects. 

"Oh, Oh, say you so?"' she writes to Plan- 
nah More. " It must have been instinct then 
that has made me send for a quarter of a hun- 
dred more of ' Will Chip,' and still for more 
and more; the last bale came in yesterday, 
and I see they will not last the week out; I 
had better have had a hundred at once. Last 
W3ek I sent a packet to Badminton, and my 
duciiess answers me thus: 'We have all read, 
and delight in your Village Politics.' A gen- 
tleman here says he shall send for a gross of 



156 HANNAH MORE. 

them to distribute about in Lis neigbborliood. 
I Lave not had a gross, to be sure, like this 
Gloucestershire gentleman, but I have had 
them past counting, little thinking — why, yes, 
1 did think too of somebody, though not just 
the true body; for you must know the first 
word I ever heard of poor Tom Hod. or the 
sprightly consolations of his facetious neighbor 
Jack Anvil, was one night at Lady Cremorne's, 
where the Bishop of London pulled them out 
of his pocket, and read the delectable dialogue 
to us, in tones so suitable that he was inter- 
rupted continually with our bursts of laugh- 
ter—ask Mrs. Kennicott else, for she was of the 
audience — and when he came to 'my lady/ 
and sent her 'to cold water, and hot water, 
and salt water, and fresh water,' he could not 
get on at all, we laughed so immoderately. I 
suspected his lordship was the author. 'Well/ 
as Tom says, I went home, and sure enough I 
v>Tote upon a bit of paper that minute, 'A 
quarter of a hundred of Will Chip, or Village 
Politics, to be had at Rivington's;' and this [ 
gave to citizen Brown, and bid him carry it 
early next morning to a certain walking book- 
seller of mine, who procures me all the learn- 
ing I deal in ; and this was accordingly done, . 



WILL CHIP AND HIS BRETHREN. 167 

but did not hold mc, as I said, tliree days; 
I have had many recruits since, and must 
liave more. Last night a gentleman gave me 
'Reasons for Contentment,' by Archdeacon 
l\ile7, addressed to the laboring part of the 
British public. I cast my eyes over it, and 
though I honor Archdeacon Paley, yet I as- 
sured the giver that I v;ould send him the 
production of one, the minute I got home, who 
understood the lauguage much better ; and ac- 
cordingly I despatched a little packet of Will 
Chip before I sat down at home. You will 
believe that I have not forgotten to supply 
Eichmond. Our minister and our apothecary 
are supplied ; and the first went to the house 
of Cambridge, and there excited envy, Mr. 
Cambridge declaring he washed he had writ- 
ten it. Mr. Rivington still dispenses them by 
thousands — I hope some go to France ; — and 
though he cannot get any thing by them, nor 
the pleasant author, yet both will allow that 
this is success." 

It w^as a new department for Hannah More ; 
sc influential and successful had she proved 
herself as a village politician, the Bishop of 
London besought her to come out on the side of 
religion and the Bible in '' Yilhige Christianity." 



158 HANNAH MORE. 

The pen of Miss More was not idle. If 
French politics had alarmed and nerved her 
to action, the unblushing confessions of French 
infidelity shocked her moral sense, and filled 
her with the most serious apprehensions 

'' Dupont's and Manuel's atheistical speech- 
es," writes she in April to Horace Walpole, 
now Earl of Oxford, " have stuck in my throat 
all the winter, and I have been waiting for our 
bishops and clergy to take some notice of them ; 
but blasphemy and atheism have been allowed 
to become familiar to the minds of our com- 
mon people, without any attempt being made 
to counteract the poison." 

The attempt was, however, made by Miss 
More: ''I know how paltry is the little I can 
do," she says, "but my conscience tells me 
that that little ought to be done." 

Miss More's "Remarks on the Speech of 
M. Dupont," before the National Convention 
on Religion and Public Education, made its 
appearance in the spring, together with an ad- 
dross to the ladies of Great Britain in behalf 
of the French emigrant clergy; those exiles 
flocked to England in great numbers, extreme- 
ly destitute, many lacking even the necessaries 
of life. To those in Bath, the sisters freely 



WILL CHIP AND HIS BRETHREN. 159 

extended the hospitalities of their house, and 
a thousand pounds were raised through Han- 
nah's influence in their behalf. 

''Your work is so much above praise,'^ 
t\ rites Mrs. Montagu to her, "your mind so 
superior to vanity and a desire of fame, that I 
shall not repeat to 3^ou a word of the univer- 
sal admiration it has excited, and the great 
approbation of the sentiments which prompted 
you to write it. I will barely assure you of 
what alone interests you, that this work will 
afford great assistance to the poor refugees, 
and will be of infinite service to the souls of 
thousands." 

A sunny letter from the Bishop of London 
to the lady of Cowslip Green discourses thus : 

"As yon certainly belong to my diocese, and 
are on many accounts fairly entitled to the ben- 
efit of clergy — for you can not only read, but 
also write, and even preach to the great world 
more eloquently than most clergy-women — 
I cannot do very much amiss, I think, in send- 
ing you the enclosed charge. There are two 
things at least you will learn from it : to sing 
psalms more melodiously in your parish church, 
and to reside more constantly in your proper 
diocese from which— as I know by experi- 



150 n ANN All MORE. 

ence — you are but too apt to wander, and to 
be led astray into the flowery paths of Cow- 
slip, and such like seducing and dangerous 
places, where you forget, amid the dissipation;] 
of solitude, your duty towards your neighbor, 
and never think of bestowing one single soli- 
tary line on Mr. Yv'alpole, or on me. I have 
lately received a letter from him, in which he 
complains most bitterly of your pertinacious 
silence. Pray let us hear soon how your cov/- 
slips and daisies and acacias go on, and how 
many tons of hay you have this year, for I 
take it for granted you are a great farmer. 

"Your friend Lord Oxford and myself are, 
I believe, the only persons in the kingdom 
v/orthy of the hot weather, the only true, gen- 
uine summer v/e have had for the last thirty 
years ; we both agreed that it was perfectly 
celestial, and that it was quite scandalous to 
huff it away as some people did. A few days 
before it arrived, all the world w^as complain- 
ing of the dreadfully cold nortli-east wind : 
and in three days after the warmer weather 
came in, everybody was quarrelling with iho 
leal; and sinking under the rays of the sun. 
Such is that consistent and contented thing 
called human nature. As to ourselves, wg 



WILL CHIP AND IIIS BRETHREN. 161 

enjoyed with gratitude and delight this truly 
Italian but short-lived summer. We lived in 
Bishop's noble northern room all the day, and 
U\ the evenino: the meadows were our draw- 
ing-room ; there our little lawn Avas as green 
as an emerald, and kept constantly cool with 
fresh breezes from the Thames, while every 
other field and garden in the kingdom was 
burned up, and brought actually to the color 
of a gravel-walk. Our little cottage was in- 
deed quite delicious, and this summer alone 
has amply repaid me for all my trouble and 
expense." 

Great as was the care and labor of super- 
intending the Cheddar schools, Miss More still 
projected new plans for the improvement and 
elevation of the laboring classes. There was, 
at that period, a great lack of reading suffi- 
ciently cheap, lively, and instructive, to be 
within the range of their means and tastes. 
Hannah More asked, "How can this deficiency 
be supplied?'' In the unsettled, discontented^ 
and inquiring state of the English masses, it 
seemed imperiously necessary to furnish them 
with the right sort of reading: if Will Chip 
had done good service by his judicious efforts 
in Yillage Politics, might he not labor witli 



162 HANNAH MORE. 

equal efficiency for temperance, economy, relig« 
ion, social stability, and moral improvemenl ? 

Miss More tbougbt he might: at least, the 
al tempt was worth making; and this gave rise 
to "The Cheap Repository/' a monthly imhYi- 
cation, cheap enough to come within the means 
of the humblest cottager. 

"Thank you a thousand time« for your 
most ingenious plan," exclaimed the Earl of 
Oxford. "May great success reward you. 
How calm and comfortable must your slum- 
bers be on the pillow of every day's good 
deeds!" Patty and Sarah, with other friends, 
promised their assistance, and the work was 
happily commenced. Two committees were 
formed in London to promote its regular cir- 
culation, and two millions were sold the first 
year. 

In the winter of the year 1794, which had 
been almost unremittingly occupied in work 
among her schools, with her pen, or in lesser 
schemes of active usefulness, she journeyed 
to London, and paid a few visits among old 
friends. 

"Last Saturday I dined with Mrs. Monta- 
gu. It was almost two years since I had found 
myself in such grandc monde; so I told them 



WILL CHIP AND HIS BRETHREN. 1C3 

if 1 slioiild be caught doing any thing vulgar, 
they must give me a jog. We were fourteen 
at dinner, and many more were added after, 
most of them my okl and intimate friends, who 
seemed to receive me with great kindness. I 
told them to make much of me, for their op- 
portunities of seeing such a rarity would be 
few. Mrs. Montagu is well, bright, and in full 
song, and had spread far and wide the fame 
of Cowslip Green, and the day she passed 
there. In the midst of all the splendor of 
lights and grandeur and luxury, word was 

brought in of the death of poor Lady E . 

It was a tremendous warning: she was an ami- 
able, generous, and charitable woman, but was 
immersed in luxury and splendor. 

''I w^ent to Mrs. Boscawen, with whom I 
shall make a point to pass all the time I can 
spare. We have had many hours' quiet dis- 
cussion. She is better, but I fear breaking up. 

''Three o'clock. Called down to Mr. Henry 
Thornton, just arrived from Clapham, where 
he, Mr. Wilberforce, and Mr. Elliott have 
been quietly enjoying themselves several dayS; 
We have had two or three hours' prate, but 
our spirits were not exhausted : he is not in 
very stout health. Yesterdav I went to hear 



164 HANNAH MORE 

Mr. Cecil — Naaman the Syrian — very excel- 
lent." 

MarcL. "Dined vritli friends at Mrs. 's. 

What duest thou here, Elijah?* Felt too 
much pleased at the pleasure expressed l)y 
so many accomplished friends, on seeing me 
a<2:ain. Keep me from conta^rion.'^ 

Sunday. "I see the need of doing the duty 
of every day in its day. When I look back on 
the past week, I see cause of mourning over 
my vanity and folly. Sloth and self are get- 
ting strong dominion, and much time wasted 
which I had devoted to improvement. Let 
these continual discoveries make me humble.'' 

May. " Came to Fulham to my dear bishop : 
much kindness — literary and elegant society; 
but the habits of polished life, even of virtu- 
ous and pious people, are too relaxing. Much 
serious reading, but not a serious spirit ; good 
health, with increased relaxation of mind: 
thus are the blessinp;s of God turned ao:ainst 
himself.'' 

Some of Miss More's best elTorts appeared 
in the pages of The Cheap Eepository. The 
Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, originally one of 
its Sunday Tracts, will alone immortalize her. 

In consequence o^ the political distractions 



WILL CHIP AND HIS BRETnRE>r. IG5 

of the Continent, and the war which England 
was called upon to wage, together with the ex- 
treme severity of the weather in 1795, which 
cut off the crops, there was great suffering 
among the lower classes; cold, scarcity, and 
discontent everywhere prevailed. The Cheap 
Repository, with wonderful sagacity, furnished 
plans and precepts for enabling the people to 
bear the ills which pressed thus heavily upon 
them, and inculcated religious truths in so 
simple and direct a manner, that the faith of 
multitudes, shaken by the shallow sophistries 
of infidelity, became strengthened in the good 
old ways of their fathers. 

Illustrious was the race of Chips. Mrs. 
Jones' cheap dishes in "Hester Wilmot" were 
in repute even at the tables of the rich ; "Black 
Giles the Poacher'^ frightened everybody try- 
ing to live by their wits rather than their 
work ; no temperance agent ever effected more 
good than "Sorrowful Sam ;" while the "Riot'' 
ballad, seasonably sung among a gang of min- 
ers on the eve of a rising, saved the mills, 
spared the butchers, and restored quiet to a 
most seditious neighborhood. 

Bishop Butler's Analogy for a half-penny 
is surely worthy of record ; the doubts, per- 



166 HANNAH MORE. 

plexities, and sinful grumblings of many a one 
careful and troubled about many things, are 
happily and sensibly rebuked in this most ex- 
cellent epitome of one of the grand truths of 
God's providential government: no one can 
read "Turn the Carpet" without having his 
faith confirmed, and whether willing to confess 
it or not, being ashamed of envious compari- 
sons and ungrateful murmurs. 

TURN THE CARPET, OR THE TWO AVEAVERS. 

IN A DIALOGUE BETWEEN DICK AND JOHN. 

As at their work two weavers sat, 
Beguiling time with friendly chat, 
They touched upon the price of meat, 
So high, a weaver scarce could eat. 

" What with my brats and sickly wife,- ' 
Quoth Dick, "I 'm almost tired of life ; 
So hard my work, so poor my fare, 
'T is more than mortal man can bear. 

"How glorious is the rich man's state I 
His house so fine, his wealth so great! 
Heaven is unjust, j^ou must agree ; 
Why all to him ? why none to me ? 

"In spite of what the Scripture teaches, 
In spite of all the parson preaches. 
This world — indeed, I 've thought so long- 
Is ruled, motl links, extremely wrong. 



WILL CUIP AND HIS BRETIIUEX. IGl 

** Where'er I look, howe'er I range, 
'T is all confused and hard and strange ; 
The good are troubled and oppressed, 
And all the wicked are the blessed." 

Quoth John, '• Our ign'rance is the cause 
Why thus we blame our Maker's laws : 
Farts of his ways alone we know ; 
'T is all that man can see below. 

"Seest thou that carpet, not half done, 
Which thou, dear Dick, hast well begun? 
Behold the wild confusion there ; 
So rude the mass it makes one stare 1 

"A stranger, ign'rant of the trade, 
Would say. No meaning's there conveyed; 
For Where's the middle, where 's the border? 
Thy carpet now is all disorder." 

Quoth Dick, " My work is yet in bits, 
But still in every part it fits. 
Besides, you reason like a lout ; 
Why, man, that carpeVs inside out^ 

Says John, "Thou say'st the thing I mean, 
And now I hope to cure thy spleen : 
This world, which clouds thy soul with doubt^ 
Is but a carpet inside out, 

"As when we view these slu'eds and ends, 
We know not what the whole intends ; 
So when on earth things look but odd, 
They 're working still some scheme of God, 

**No plan, no pattern can we trace ; 
All wants proportion, truth, and grace: 
The motley mixture we deride. 
Nor see the beauteous upper side. 



168 HANNAH MORE. 

*'But when we reach that world of light, 
And view those works of God aright, 
Then shall we see the whole design, 
And own the Workman is divine. 

"What now seem random strokes, will there 
All order and design appear ; 
Then shall we praise what here we spurned, 
For then the carjiet shall he turned^ 

"Thou^'t right," quoth Dick ; "no more I'll grumble 
That this sad world's so strange a jumble j 
My im/)ious doubts are put to flight, 
For my own carpet sets me right " 



TEIALS AND OPPOSITION. 1C9 



CHAPTER XII. 

TRIALS AND OPPOSITION. 

In June, Wilberforce made a bridal jour- 
ney to Cowslip Green; Miss More willingly 
left the splendors of London to come and bid 
him welcome. "By this coming," she says, 
"he prepaid a sort of vow, made many years 
since ; you will think it not amiss to make his 
agreeable wife set out with such an act of 
humility.'' 

On the following Sunday, in company with 
the sisters, he visited the schools of Shipham, 
Axbridge, and Cheddar. Cheddar then was 
not the Cheddar of his first visit, eight years 
before, when the sight of its ignorant and 
WTctched population robbed him of the pleas- 
ure of his trip. Wilberforce rejoiced, and 
tlianked God for the blessed change. 

This year, 1797, was marked by his mar- 
riage and the printing of his "Practical Chris- 
tianity," for it had long been before the w^orld 
in a life of practical godliness, known and read 
by all men. Practical Christianity was at a 



ItO HANNAH MORK. 

low ebb ; there was little or no demand for 
books of that kind, and his friends tried to 
dissuade him from publishing it. 

" If you put your no me to it, you may pos- 
sibly sell five hundred copies,'' said his book- 
S(»ller, looking as if he thought that extremely 
doubtful. But the hidden w^ant was little un- 
derstood: a religious book of its nature and 
spirit was needed; and when issued, the de- 
mand was so great that a few days exhausted 
the edition. 

"I am truly thankful to Providence,'' says 
the excellent Bishop Porteus, *'that a work of 
this nature has made its appearance at this 
tremendous moment. I pray God it may have 
a powerful and extensive influence upon the 
hearts of men, and in the first place upon my 
own, which is already humbled, and will, I 
trust, in time be sufficiently humbled by it." 
''Such a book at such a time, and by such a 
man!" exclaims Newton: "I accept it as a 
token of good, yea, as the brightest token I 
can discern in this dark and perilous day." 

Fifteen editions issued from the English 
press ; twenty-five were sold in this country, 
and it took a high place among the instrumen- 
talities that gave a quickened impulse to thai 



TRIALS AND OTPOSITION. 171 

warm and more earnest piety which has dis- 
tinguished the last half century. 

While Wilberforce visits Cowslip Green, 
and joins the sisters in their walks of useful- 
ness, Newton enjoys their society and sympa- 
thy as fancy sketches them in the quiet of his 
study, or along the dust and din of Cheapside. 
*' I am gone to the Yale of Mendip,'^ writes he, 
"to Cowslip Green, to the Eoot house, where 
perhaps the ladies are just now assembled to 
breakfast. Oh, could I actually see them, with 
what glee should I say, 'Good morning, ladies!'^ 

"Well, I must be content with ideal visits 
for the present, but not always ; a day is ap- 
proaching when we hope to have a joyful meet- 
ing indeed. I trust that Cowslip Green is holy 
ground, and all the inhabitants consecrated 
persons ; sprinkled, like the priests of old, with 
the atoning blood, anointed with the holy unc- 
tion, and devoted with united hearts, hands, 
and tongues, to do the will and to proclaim 
the praise of our God and Saviour. It is no 
wonder that I so long to be with them. 

"Indeed I am with you in spirit, and I 
think this is more than a sally of the imagina- 
tion ; the communion of saints, which we pro- 
fess to believe, like the communion of the 



172 HANNAH MORE. 

members of the body, is derived from a com- 
munication of life and spirits from the same 
common Head, by which they have reciprocal 
fellowship and fellow-feeling among them- 
selves: and though believers, the salt of the 
earth, are scattered up and down, far and 
wide, to preserve the whole mass from putre- 
faction, they are one in Him. The supreme 
object of their love is as yet unseen. For his 
sake they love all who love him, though it is 
but few of them comparativel}^ that they can 
expect to see, until he shall collect them to- 
gether in the great day of his appearance. 
The virtue of the heavenly magnet which 
draws them all to himself, connects them at 
the same time with each other. Their aims, 
their hopes, and their spiritual sustenance are 
the same. Local distance neither discourages 
their mutual prayers, nor prevents their effi- 
cacy. 

''The shadows of evening are advancing 
upon me. If ever I see Mendip again, it must 
be by a bird's-eye view from the higher hill of 
Zion above. But I trust I shall at intervals 
recollect with pleasure the happy week [ pass- 
ed at Cowslip Green while I can remember 
any thing." 



TRIALS AND OPPOSITION. 173 

The New-year's day of 1798 was solem- 
nized by Hannali More by a renewed and 
more entire dedication of herself to the ser- 
vice of her heavenly Master. ''Let me now 
give myself away with a more entire sur- 
render than I have ever yet made,'' she 
records. 

'* 1. I resolve, by the grace of God, to be 
more watchful over my temper. 

"2. Not to speak idly or harshly. 

"3. To watch over my thoughts; not to 
indulge in vain, idle, resentful, impatient, 
worldly imaginations. 

"4. To strive after closer communion with 
God. 

*' 5. To let no hour pass without lifting up 
my heart to him, through Christ. 

'*6. Not to let a day pass without some 
thought of death. 

"7. To ask myself every night, when I lie 
down. Am I fit to die ? 

'' 8. To labor to do and to suffer the whole 
will of God. 

"9. To cure my overanxiety. by casting 
myself on God in Christ. 

** I resolve to pray at least twice a week, 
separately, for the country in this time of dan- 



174 HANNAH MORE. 

ger, independently of the petitions offered up 
in my other prayers. 

''Lord, grant that my religious advantages 
may never appear against me. Many tempta- 
tions this week to vanity ; flattery without end. 
God be praised, I was 7iot flattered: twenty- 
four hours' headache makes me see the vanity 
of all this. Am I tempted to vanity? Let 
me recall to mind the shining friends I have 
lost this year, eminent each in his different 
way, yet he that is least in the kingdom of 
heaven is greater than either." 

Among these shining friends was Horace 
Walpole, whose twenty years of unclouded 
kindness and pleasant correspondence Miss 
More could not drop without a sigh. 

As the best proof of her sincerity, we find 
her this year extending her labors, and estab- 
lishing a new school at Wedmore, \h^ largest 
parish in the county, and deplorably ignorant. 
In the undertaking she met with unnumbered 
trials. The farmers were angry at her interfer- 
ence, and more hostile than any which the sis* 
ters had encountered before. In remodelling 
a damp and unfinished building for a school- 
house, she took a violent cold, which threw 
her upon a sick-bed. Though harassed and 



TRIALS AND OPPOSITION. 115 

opposed, she went bravely on: it was enough 
for her to know that the work was to be done, 
and that Providence seemed to have appoint- 
ed her to do it. 

In the midst of her labors "Wilberforco 
came from Bath, and carried her there to take 
the benefit of the waters. 

''I feel it rather base to steal away and 
leave poor Patty to work double tides,'' she 
wrote to Mrs. Kennicott. ''We have in hand 
a new and very laborious undertaking ; but the 
object appeared to me so important that I did 
not feel myself at liberty to neglect it. 

" The opposition I have met with in en- 
deavoring to establish an institution for the 
religious instruction of these people would ex- 
cite your astonishment: in spite of it, however, 
which far exceeds any thing which I have met 
with, I am building a house and taking up 
things on such a large scale, that you must not 
be surprised if I get into debt. Providence, I 
trust, will carry me through the undertaking; 
for, notwithstanding the active malevolence we 
experience, I have brought already three or 
four hundred under a course of instruction. 
The worst part of the story is, that thirty miles 
there and back is a little too much these short 



ltd HANNAH MORE. 

clays; and when we get there, our house has 
neither windows nor doors : but if we live till 
next summer things will mend, and in so pre- 
carious a world as this is, a winter was not to 
be lost;^ 

Besides these active duties, her pen was 
busily employed in preparing "Strictures on 
Female Education," which appeared in the be- 
ginning of the following year. 

The tendencies then, as now, were towards 
amusement rather than sobriety, fashionable 
accomplishments instead of valuable knowledge 
and practical industry, filial independence in 
place of filial obedience. 

The practical evils which lie in the path of 
Christian education, from low and imperfect 
notions of what should be its chief aim, to- 
gether with a false estimate of worldly advan- 
tages, are portrayed with vigor and truth. 

Her pertinent question to the women of 
her own time, may be asked with no less sig- 
nificance to ours, ''Does it seem to be the true 
end of education to make women dancers, sing- 
ers, players, painters, actresses, sculptors, gild- 
ers, varnishers, engravers, and embroiderers? 

"Most men are commonly destined to some 
profession, and their minds are consequently 



TRIALS AND OrPOSITION. Ht 

turned each to its respective object. Would 
it not be strange if they were called out to 
exercise their profession or set up their trade 
with only a little general knowledge of the 
Ij'ades and professions of all other men, and 
without any previous definite application (o 
their own peculiar calling? The profession of 
ladies to which the bent of their instruction 
should be turned, is that of daughters, wives, 
mothers, and mistresses of families. They 
should be, therefore, trained with a view to 
these several conditions, and be furnished with 
a stock of ideas and principles and qualifica- 
tions and habits ready to be applied and ap- 
propriated, as occasion may demand, to each 
of these respective situations. For though the 
arts which merely embellish must claim ad- 
miration, yet when a man of sense comes to 
marry, it is a companion whom he wants, and 
not an artist. It is not merely a creature who 
can paint, and play, and sing, and draw, and 
dress, and dance ; it is a being who can com- 
fort and counsel him : one who can reason and 
reflect, and feel and judge, and discourse and 
discriminate J one who can assist him in his 
affairs, lighten his cares, strengthen his princi- 
ples, and educate his children. 



178 HANNAH MORE. 

*' Almost any ornamental acquirement is a 
good thing when it is not the best thing a 
woman has ; and talents are admirable when 
not made to stand proxy for virtues." 

May not much of the want of success, the 
failures, the bankruptcy, the discouragements, 
the complaints of men in business, be traced 
to a wrong domestic education? Are women 
sufficiently trained for a thorough understand- 
ing of their household duties? Do not fash- 
ionable accomplishments usurp the place of 
domestic virtues? Turn which way we can, 
gild and ornament, and reason and sentimen- 
talize as we may, life is full of practical evils, 
unwrought materials, and sore trials, which 
require an earnest purpose, a patient, coura- 
geous heart, and skilful hands to convert them 
into present benefit or future good. 

Miss More's happy criticism upon the word 
''pleasant," may not be amiss for the benefit 
of those who value entertainment at the ex- 
pense of excellence. 

''There was a time when a variety of epi- 
thets were thought necessary to express va- 
rious kinds of excellence, and when the differ- 
ent qualities of the mind were distinguished 
by appropriate and discriminating terms: 



TRIALS AND OPPOSITION. 179 

when the words, venerable, learned, saga- 
cious, profound, acute, pious, worthy, ingen- 
ious, valuable, elegant, agreeable, wise, or 
witty, were used as specific marks of distinct 
characters. But the legislators of fashion have 
of late years thought proper to comprise all 
merit in one established epithet— an epithet 
which, it must be confessed, is a very desirable 
one as far as it goes. This term is exclusively 
and indiscriminately applied wherever com- 
mendation is intended. The word pleasant 
now seems to combine and express all moral 
and intellectual excellence. Every individual, 
from the gravest professors of the gravest pro- 
fession, down to the trifler who is of no pro- 
fession at all, must earn the epithet of pleas- 
ant or must be contented to be nothing; and 
must be consigned over to ridicule under the 
vulgar and inexpressive cant word of hore. 
This is the mortifying designation of many a 
respectable man, who, though of much worth 
and ability, cannot perhaps clearly make out 
his letters-patent to the title o^ pleasant. For 
according to this modern classification there is 
no intermediate state, but all arc comprised 
within the ample bounds of one or the other 
of these two comprehensive terms.'' 



180 HANNAH MORE. 

Her chapter upon Children's Balls, which 
she declares are a triple conspiracy against 
Ihe innocence, health, and happiness of chil- 
dren, \yould be likely to give almost as innch 
offence now as it did then. The remark of a 
Christian mother in one of our cities, that ''the 
increasing prevalence of evening dancing'par- 
ties and late hours for young children, she 
could not but consider a serious evil, yet felt 
obliged to yield to the fashion,'' reveal a sad 
defection in parental discipline wdiich it is to 
bo feared is gaining ground in the religious 
communit3^ 

The "Strictures" were greatly commend- 
ed; letters of thanks, congratulation, encour- 
agement, and praise poured in upon the author 
from the old circle, Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Mon- 
tagu, Mrs. Chapone, Miss Carter, Mrs. Bar- 
bauld, and from many others less familiar to 
these pages. 

The sisters Hannah and Patty now went 
up to London for the benefit of a change, to 
both mind and body. Mrs. Boscawen was ex- 
tremely feeble at this time: '* God bless you, 
ni} dear madam," said Hannah, on coming 
away, afraid lest it might be the last meeting. 

"That is well,'' said the venerable lady,. 



TRIALS AND OPPOSITION. 181 

making her by the hand, and looking steadfast- 
ly into her face, ''that is well, but you must 
do more, you must pray for me ; I am going 
gently off." 

Miss Carter at eighty-three was in the en- 
joyment of better health and spirits than usual- 
ly fall to the lot of so advanced age, and the 
conversation of the friends, if less sparkling, 
savored more of Christian hope and holy joy. 

Meanwhile troubles were brewing in one 
of her parishes, which proved extremely vex- 
atious and distressing to Miss More and her 
family: viewed through the lapse of years, it 
seems strange that charges so inconsistent with 
truth could have been made against her, and 
that the affair could ever have assumed the 
dignity of a ''controversy." 

A school had been established in the profli- 
gate parish of Blagdon, near Cowslip Green, 
at the earnest and repeated request of both 
curate and magistrate, for Miss More, on 
their first application, felt that she had nei- 
ther strength nor means for any new under- 
taking : having consented, she paid particular 
attention to its welfare, and in a few years 
had the satisfaction of knowing that disorders, 
warrants, and indictments had almost entirely 



182 HANNAH MORE. 

disappeared before the benign and beneficial 
influence of the enterprise. For five years 
affairs went smoothly on, when one of her 
schoolmasters named Young was charged by 
tlie curate Mr. Bere with introducing MeLh- 
odism into his school, Avhich simply consisted 
in encouraging extemporaneous prayer, and 
speaking upon religious experience in a little 
meeting of a dozen poor neighbors. For this 
irregularity, as it was regarded. Miss More, 
who was then sick at Bath, gave him a timely 
reprimand, and the school went quietly on. 
Whether owing to some private pique or per- 
sonal dislike, the curate was not so easily sat- 
isfied ; he began to preach against the schools, 
and broudit fresh accusations airainst the 
schoolmaster. The matter was referred to the 
rector, and afterwards to a local tribunal, the 
result of which was the dismissal of the school- 
master and the disbanding of the school. Miss 
More acquiesced for peace' sake, though her 
judgment did not sanction the course. Young 
had been in her service for ten years, and his 
CYomplary conduct and faithful discharge ot 
duty had won a confidence not to be easily 
shaken. She recommended him to the patrons 
of a large charitable institution near Dublin, . 



TRIALS AND OPPOSITION. 183 

who not long afterwards appointed him super- 
intendent, the duties of which he fulfilled with 
credit to himself and to the satisfaction of his 
employers. 

Disbanding the school cost her many strug-^ 
glcs. '' It is with no small concern I have to 
inform you that we shall meet no more in this 
place," she said in her parting address to the 
little flock who sat around her with anxious 
looks and tearful eyes. " The Sunday-school, 
and the evening reading, the weekly school of 
industry, are all at an end. Before we part, it 
is but justice to you to declare that my sister 
and I have never had more comfort from WiQ 
teachable and dutiful behavior of any children, 
nor more satisfaction from the sober and de- 
cent conduct of any parents, than we have 
experienced in this place. You will give the 
best evidence that you have profited by our 
instructions and those of your master, by car- 
rying the religion you have been taught on 
Sunday into the business of the week and the 
behavior of your daily life. I shall hold that 
person's religious profession very cheap in- 
deed, who is not hereafter sober, peaceable, 
industrious, and forgiving. Be diligent in 
your attendance at church twice a day. Show 



184 HANNAH MORE. 

that you fear Gocl, by keeping his command- 
ments and reverencing his ministers ; show 
that you ' honor the king,' by submitting to all 
that are in authority under him, especially to 
magistrates. Mr. Young has proved himself, 
during eight years' service, an honest and up- 
right man, and an able and faithful schoolmas- 
ter. You are greatly indebted to him, and 
can reward him in no other way but by living 
in such a manner as shall be a credit to his 
instructions. He vrill continue in this place, 
of which he is a parishioner, till he can settle 
himself elsewhere ; but I earnestly request 
that, though you treat him as a kind friend 
and neighbor, you do not, either by many or 
by few, resort to him for instruction. 

"Young men, let me exhort 3^ou to be 
sober-minded ; avoid the snares and corrup- 
tions of the vforld, against which you have 
been so long guarded, and to which, at your 
season of life, you will be so much exposed. 
My young women, so long the objects of our 
tender care and concern, I commit j^ou to the 
protection of God. He can, and I trust he will 
raise up better friends than we have been to 
you. In any case he will himself be your friend, 
if you walk in the paths in which you have 



TRIALS AND OPPOSITION. 185 

been trained. lie will never leave you nor 
forsake you. As those hours on Sunday even- 
ings which you have been accustomed to pass 
in this house are the seasons of the greatest 
dangers to your youth and ignorance, watch 
well, I beseech you, over yourselves. You 
are now furnished with Bibles ; you have been 
taught to read and understand them ; so that 
if you now fall into sin, you will no longer have 
the former excuse of ignorance to plead. We 
have this day repeated our annual gift of forty 
Bibles and Common Prayer books, the usual 
number of Bishop Gartrell's 'Institutes,' Bishop 
Beveridge's 'Private Thoughts,' Doddridge's 
'Eise and Progress of Eeligion,' for the elder, 
with some hundreds of Cheap Eepository and 
other small tracts for younger ones. To the 
use of these you must add prayer to God for 
his grace and direction. Though what little 
we have done here is mixed with much imper- 
fection, yet I trust the general design and ten- 
dency of it has been right. 

"We shall never think of die five years 
that arc past without being thankful for what 
has been done, and without wishing we liad 
done more and better. To the principal farm- 
ers and heads of the parish we are o])liged 



186 HANNAH MORE. 

for tlieir approbation and countenance of the 
scliool, and their kindness to the master and 
mistress. Being willing to leave a last testi- 
mony of our regard to the poor, we have 
deposited in the hands of your respectable 
church-warden five guineas, to be applied to a 
general subscription, in case the scarcity should 
make such a measure necessary, or otherwise 
to be disposed of at his direction and that of 
the vestr}^" 

The rector having learned that the school- 
master's offence had never been repeated after 
Miss More's reprimand, dismissed Mr. Bere 
from the curacy, and requested Miss More to 
reopen the schools: this request was warmly 
seconded by her own affectionate interest in 
the little Blagdon flock, and accordingly she 
did so. But the curate was not so easily sha- 
ken off. Having committed no ecclesiastical 
or moral offence, he could not be deprived of 
his office, and he remained at Blagdon a thorn 
in her side. To disarm his hostility, in August 
she again closed the schools, not to be re- 
opened. 

Grieved and wounded to the quick, Han- 
nah writes to Wilberforce, "In Blagdon is 
still, a voice heard, lamentation and mourn- 



TRIALS AND OPPOSITION. 181 

ing; aiicl at Cowslip Rachel is still weeping 
for her children, and refusing to be comforted 
because they are not instructed. This heavy 
blow has almost bowed me to the ground. It 
v^ as only last night I began to get a little sleep. 
My reason and my religion know that it is 
permitted by that gracious Being who uses 
sometimes bad men for his instruments; but 
reason and religion do not operate much upon 
the nerves. I doubt not but that He who can 
bring much real good out of much seeming 
evil, will eventually turn this shocking busi- 
ness to his glory." 

Hitherto we have only seen Hannah More 
borne on favoring gales ; her London acquaint- 
ance rejoiced in her society and celebrity; 
fame and friends followed her to Cowslip 
Green; her home missionary labors, difficult 
and arduous as they had been, were crowned 
with success ; her works placed her among 
the- revered and honored of England: pros- 
perity, we know, is neither favorable to piety 
nor self-knowledge, and the hour of trial came. 

''If it please God," she says, " thus to put 
an end to my little — how little ! — usefulness, I 
hope to be enabled to submit to his will; not 
only to submit to it because I cannot help it, 



188 HANNAH MORE. 

but to acquiesce in it^ because it is hohj, just, and 
goodr 

Though her reputation, her character, her 
labors were seemingly at stake — for the affair 
took the shape of a bitter quarrel, in which the 
sisters were assailed with personal abuse and 
public misrepresentation — no words of anger 
or recrimination or sinful repining issue from 
her lips. Conscious of her innocence as far as 
regards her fellow-men, she offers neither de- 
fence nor exculpation : her chief desire is spir- 
itual improvement, an increased purity of heart, 
and a more humble reliance upon the Lord her 
strength. 

'"Blessed are ye when men revile you and 
persecute you, and say all manner of evil against 
yowfalsehj,'' and * for my name's sake.' When I 
consider whose words are these," wrote Newton 
to his afflicted friend, *'I am more disposed to 
congratulate than to condole with you on the un- 
just and hard treatment that 3'ou have met with. 

''Yet I do feel for you. These things are 
not joyous but grievous at the time ; it is after- 
ivards that they yield the peaceable fruits of 
righteousness. Cheer up, my friend; tarry 
thou the Lord's leisure. Be strong, and he 
shall comfort thy heart.'^ 



TRIALS AND OPPOSITIOX. 189 

Among the charges laid against Miss More 
in this controversy, were those of teaching 
Calvinism, sympathizing with the Methodists, 
and encouraging dissenters. Though firmly 
attached to her church, Miss More was less a 
church woman than a Christian. 

''Bible Christianity is what I love," said 
she, "that does not insist upon opinions indif- 
ferent in themselves — a Christianity practical 
and pure, which teaches holiness, humility, 
repentance, and faith in Christ; and which, 
after summing up all the evangelical graces, 
declares that the greatest of these is charity.'^ 

No better description than this could be 
given of her religious character: it grew out 
of large, intelligent, experimental views of 
Bible Christianity. No other Christianity but 
that which is drawn directly from the pure 
word of God can give equal symmetry and 
comprehensiveness — can blend in such just 
proportion the deepest self-abasement and the 
most trusting faith with the greatest amount of 
usefulness and good Avorks. 



190 HANNAH MORE 

CHAPTER. XIII. 

BARLEY WOOD. 

Visitors without number flocked to Cow- 
slip Green, until Cowslip Green w^as too strait 
for the fame and hospitality of its mistress. 
She now projected a new house, more ample 
and commodious, upon a swell of land half a 
mile from Wrington, commanding a wider 
sweep of hill and valley, of hamlet and green. 
Its peculiar beauty led one of her friends to 
call it "the gift of an all-wise Providence, to 
soothe her after her troubles.'^ 

In conducting this new enterprise. Miss 
More hoped to regain that tranquillity of mind 
and strength of body which the trials she had 
passed through had seriously damaged. 

Barley Wood became her residence in 
1801. 

Hitherto the sisters had divided their time 
between Bath and Wrington : they now deter- 
mined to give up the care and expense of a 
divided dwelling and a bustling town, and 
spend the remainder of their days together at 
Barley Wood. 



BARLEY WOOD. 191 

•' Lord, grant that this prove a blessing to 
us all, and draw us nearer to him," exclaims 
Hannah: ''make us thankful that our lot has 
fallen in so pleasant a place, that we have a 
goodly heritage; but let us not take up with 
so poor a portion as this life, or any thing in 
it.'' 

Each sister has her place in the household. 
There sits Miss Mary, already past sixty, plain 
in manners and pointed in speech, who allows 
herself no indulgences, nor suffers any impro- 
priety to pass without rebuke. Here is the 
wife of Barley Wood, Miss Elizabeth, gentle 
and loving; her presence, like a good angel, 
regulating, smoothing, harmonizing; and her 
work-basket, like Dorcas', filled with coats and 
garments for the poor. Miss Sally is bright 
and spicy. " Pros}^ More " she was called by 
intimates, in distinction from Hannah, who 
was sometimes dubbed "Poetry." Sarah was 
the author of two novels, and her witty repar- 
tees were the delight of friends, who declared 
her a living contradiction of Solomon's posi- 
tion, "nothing new under the sun.'^ 

The star of the sphere is Hannah: she is 
world-known now, and ever^^body comes to do 
her honor. There are lines of suffering upon 



J 92 HANNAH MORE. 

her face, yet it is beaming with benevolence ; 
the pressure of sickness is often heavy, but 
her elastic spirit seldom yields: she thinks 
and plans and works and reads even on the 
sick-bed. 

On her first entrance to the new home, she 
was confined to her chamber, and "this puts 
me in mind," she says, "of the old remark, 
that the first spot of earth of which Abraham 
took possession in the land of promise, was a 
grave !'^ 

Among the children of England who were 
sporting in her stately halls, one little girl 
there was on whose fair head rested a nation's 
hopes. She was remembered at every house- 
hold altar ; wise men talked of her, and good 
men prayed for her. 

To the loyal heart of Hannah More, the 
education of the Princess Charlotte could 
hardly fail to be deeply interesting. Nor is it 
surprising that this gifted teacher should be 
asked to furnish, from the rich stores of her 
experience, valuable suggestions to those who 
had the charge of it. 

To this end she wrote "Hints towards 
Forming the Character of a Young Princess/' 
dedicated to Dr. Fisher, Bishop of Exeter, 



BARLEY WOOD. 193 

who had just been appointed preceptor to the 
royal pupil. Copies were presented to the 
king and queen, the prince and princess, who 
sll alike bore testimony to its excellence. Not 
I aving a speedy introduction to this country, 
fche understood it was excluded by our repub- 
lican principles. When informed it was actu- 
ally in circulation, much gratified, she exclaim- 
ed, "I have conquered America.'' 

On the 7th of January, 1804, amonu: the 
particular mercies which crowned her days, 
she enumerated, "considerable restoration of 
my health and spirits; personal and family 
comforts continued; family misfortunes avert- 
ed ; opportunities of doing some good ; our 
schools continued ; kindness of friends ; abil- 
ity to enjoy my sweet place ; escape from the 
turbulent life of Bath ; increased opportunities 
of reading and retirement," for which she de- 
sires to have an abiding and lively gratitude : 
"though for all earthly blessings we should 
pray only w^ith entire submission to the divine 
will ; Avhile in praying for spiritual blessings, 
no reserve, no caution, no limit is necessary/^ 

"Lord, pour out the grace of thy Holy 
Spirit on me and mine without measure; teach 
us to love thee with all our hearts, minds, 

H ^r,..e. 9 



194 HANNAH MORE. 

souls, and strength, and to devote the re- 
mainder of our lives to thy service, and to 
the glory of our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ.'^ 

This month closed her correspondence with 
Mrs. Boscawen. 

*' Yes, my very excellent and dear friend, '^ 
wrote Mrs. Boscawen in her last letter, *' I 
must send one word sooner or later, in return 
for the kindest of letters, which w^as a cordial 
to me ; that one word must express the truest 
gratitude for such remembrance, the most con- 
stant affection, and the sincerest satisfaction in 
the news of your better health ; so happily 
provided for by your own wisdom and activ- 
ity, in removing from the vale below, and 
planting j^ourself so delightfully on a hill. 

"I desire the continuance of your prayers 
for me, my dear friend ; for Oh, what is it to 
live so long ! It is, you will answer, the will 
of Him ' in wiiom we live and move and have 
our being.^ 

"Mrs. Carter was taken ill wdiile dining 
with Mrs. Iremonger, but is better to-day. 
Adieu, my dear friend." 

Mrs. Boscawen died soon after, and be- 
queathed forty volumes of the Port Royal 



EARLET WOOD. 195 

aiitbors to increase the library of her friend, 
and recall the memory of early days. 

Sickness again visited Barley Wood, and 
for a year Miss More seemed hovering on the 
confuies of ihe grave ; it was a period of sor- 
rowful suspense to her friends. Anxious in- 
quiries were daily made at the gate, and 
prayers for her recovery arose from many a 
humble roof: nor was this solicitude confined 
to the cottage homes which had been comforted 
by her bounty and lighted by her instructions ; 
every post brought letters of inquiry and sym- 
pathy, and at last all fears w^ere put to rest by 
returning health. 

Cheddar at this time sustained a severe loss 
by the death of its excellent curate, a faithful 
coadjutor of the sisters in their labors of love, 
whose plain preaching and pious life were 
greatly blessed to the people of his charge. 

''You would w^eep over Cheddar," said 
Miss More to Wilberforce, ''if you saw the 
change occasioned by the death of Drewitt: 
DO resident minister, only a galloper from 
Wells on Sunday, to a twelve minutes' ser- 
mon; of course the meeting thins." 

The great object to wdiich Wilberforce had 
devoted the prime of his life and the strength 



196 HANNAH MORE. 

of bis manhood was now on the eve of com- 
pletion. Slowly and steadily had the cause of 
the abolition of the slave-trade gained upon 
fhe English conscience. In spite of defeats, 
distrust, and discouragements without number, 
the London Committee, after an interval of 
seven years, reassembled in Palace-yard, strong 
with the strength of a noble cause. Wilber- 
force wrote a powerful appeal upon the Enor- 
mities of the Slave-trade, and every agency 
which could be brought into action was mar- 
shalled for the approaching crisis. 

On the 22d of February, the^ first reading 
of the bill took place before the House of 
Lords. It was a night of exciting fear and 
hope. The vote stood 72 to 28. 

" Lord, let me praise thee with my whole 
heart!'' ejaculates Wilberforce. 

The House of Commons is grappling with 
it on the 23d. 

Men spoke boldly for justice and human- 
ity: they are earnest, and who shall gain- 
say them? The opposition was feeble and 
h)cse. 

One of the members called upon men that 
day to mark how much the rewards of virtue 
were s.iperior to those of ambition ; to contrast 



BARLEY WOOD. 19T 

the feelings of Napoleon in his greatness with 
those of the honored indiyidual who should 
that night lay his head upon the pillow, and 
remember that through his agency the slave- 
trade was no more. Every eye was directed 
towards Wilberforce, and a sudden burst of 
applause rang through the House. 

The vote stood 283 to 16. A month after- 
wards it came for a third reading before the 
House of Lords: two days afterwards, March 
25, 1807, the bill received the royal sanction 
and became a law. 

'* Oh, what thanks do I owe the Giver of 
all good, for bringing me in his gracious prov- 
idence to this great cause, which at length, 
after nineteen years of labor, is successful !'' 
exclaims the master-spirit of the occasion. 

*' To speak of fame and glory to Mr. Wil- 
berforce, would be to use language far beneath 
him,'" said Sir James Mackintosh. "How pre- 
cious is time ! How noble and sacred is hu- 
man nature, made capable of achieving such 
truly great exploits." 

"AYhat a promise of happiness does it 
bear to millions and hundreds of millions of 
our species,'' wrote Mr. Stephens, the husband 
of Miss Wilberforce, to Hannah More, ''and 



198 HANNAH MORE. 

from what a load of odious guilt and shame 
does it deliver our country!'^ 

We may well believe it a day of rejoicing 
a! Barley Wood. 

Bishop Porteus, the friend and coadjutor 
of both Wilberforce and Miss More, was Hear- 
ing the end of his long and useful life. After 
his eye had become dim and his natural force 
abated he visited Barley Wood, and spent a 
few days with its gifted mistress. 

Similarity of taste and character seems 
early to have drawn them together ; she w^as a 
frequent guest at Fulham palace, where his 
sweetness of temper, playful wit, and innocent 
cheerfulness delighted the society of his more 
intimate friends, while he exercised the func- 
tions of his high office with zeal and judgment, 
for the promotion of true religion and the best 
interests of humanity. 

A few weeks before his death. Miss More 
received from him a short and hurried note, 
begging her intercession at the throne of mercy 
for divine aid on a difficult duty w^hich devolv- 
ed ujwn him: "My great hope and resource 
is, what I have always had recourse to in such 
cases, prayer ; give me then your frequent and 
fervent prayers, and T shall hope for that most 



BARLEY WOOD. 199 

powerful protection of a gracious Providence, 
which I am convinced has never failed in sim- 
ilar cases." The nature of the duty he did not 
disclose, but on the third day she received the 
assurance that prayer had had its usual effect, 
and all was well. 

A report having reached the worthy pre* 
late of the formation of a Sunday club under 
the patronage of the Prince of Wales, this 
public desecration of holy time filled him with 
sorrow and alarm. Rallying his wasted 
strength, he sought the prince, and in solemn 
language warned him of the fatal influence of 
his example upon the religion and morals of 
his kingdom. The prince heard and yielded, 
and the servant of God departed in peace: a 
few more days, and he entered upon a Sabbath 
of eternal rest. Miss More erected a cenotaph 
to his memory on her grounds at Barley Wood, 
bearing the inscription : 

TO 

BEILBY PORTEUS, 

LATE LORD BISHOP OF LONDON, 

W GRATEFUL MEMORY OF LONG AND FAITHFUL FRIENDSHIf. 

n. M 



200 n ANN A II MORE. 

CHAPTER XIY. 

FALLING LEAVES. 

lisr the summer of 1810, we find Miss More 
making a tour among good and agreeable 
friends in Gloucester, reviving the friendships 
of earlier days, and adding new ones to the 
already extended list. 

"I have been visiting," she writes to Mrs. 
Kennicott, '' the scenes where we used to gip- 
sy, and traced many a spot where I had picked 
dry sticks to boil the tea-kettle under a shady 
oak, or broiled a mutton-chop on knitting- 
needles. The companions of our harmless 
rambles are all gone.'^ 

Mrs. Montagu, sprightly and beautiful even 
at fourscore, had died, and a volume of her 
letters was before the public. Her friend and 
intimate, Elizabeth Carter, lived a year or two 
longer, surrounded by all that could make long 
life venerable and attractive, ''honor, love, 
obedience, and troops of friends.'^ 

Miss More was threescore, and if there bo 
an abatement of bodily vigor, there is no 
slackness of the hidden fires that glow within. 



FALLING LEAVES. 201 

In spite of ''tormenting bile," a burdensome 
correspondence, and almost incessant compa- 
ny, time and strength were not wanting to 
write "Practical Piety,'' one of her favorite 
works in this country, and one which is far 
superior to many works of a kindred charac- 
ter that have superseded it. After describing 
what Christianity is as an internal principle^ 
she thus unfolds its practical influence : 

''The love of God, as it is the only source 
of every right feeling and action, so it is the 
only principle which necessarily involves the 
love of our fellow-creatures. There is a love 
of partiality, but not of benevolence ; of sensi- 
bility, but not of philanthropy ; of friends and 
favorites, of parties and societies, but not of 
men collectivel}^ It is true, we may and do, 
w^ithout this principle, relieve man's distresses, 
but we do not bear with his faults. We may 
promote his fortune, but we do not forgive his 
offences ; above all, we are not anxious for his 
immortal interests. We could not see him 
want without pain, but we can see him sin 
without emotion. We could not hear of a 
beggar perishing at our door without horror, 
but we can without concern witness an ac- 
quaintance dying without repentance. Is it 



202 HANNAH MORE 

not strange that we must participate something 
of the divine nature before we can really love 
the human ? It seems to be an insensibility to 
sin, rather than want of benevolence to man-' 
kind, that makes us naturally pity their tem- 
poral and be careless of their spiritual wants : 
but does not this very insensibility proceed 
from a want of love to G od ?'' 

This discriminating extract is followed by 
a clear analj^sis of what is sometimes called 
"sentimental benevolence," and an estimate 
of what it is really worth. 

''It really feels for the disorders which 
afflict humanity, at least while it lasts ; it 
really desires to relieve them, and sets about 
reforming some of the external and more prom- 
inent evils, in the hope that if they are cured, 
those of lesser note will naturally flat away, 
and society in the end will be righted. Sin is 
regarded as accidental, rather than radical — an 
excuse, rather than a cause; poverty a penalty 
for wealth, rather than a consequence of idle- 
ness and unthrift; restraint, discipline, and 
punishment, the inexorable decrees of the few, 
instead of the necessary safeguards for the 
many; reformation of institutions is more 
aimed at than regeneration of principles. But 



FALLING LEAVES. 203 

it is found to be a far more difficult and per- 
plexing work than was counted for: it is like 
stopping the leaks of an old building with 
sand ; it gets soon discouraged at the hopeless 
nature of its task ; yet, unwilling to abandon 
it, still anxious to seem to do even when it 
knows not what to do or where to begin, it 
runs to find fault with those who continue pa- 
tiently laboring, because so much still remains 
to be done, and rail at their instruments with- 
out offering them better. The truth is, this 
philanthropy springs from the natural sensi- 
bilities and sympathies of the heart, which are 
amiable rather than efficient, self-loving rather 
than self-sacrificing, the parent of feeling more 
than of principle, partaking more of the dem- 
agogue than the true patriot. 

"The disordered state of the world, it must 
be confessed, is painful and perplexing in the 
extreme ; but the disease lies at the heart and 
in the core of society, and there is no love for 
man but that which springs from love to God, 
which is strong and faithful enough to work 
for his salvation. The maxims, motives, and 
aims which control man are wrong, and noth- 
ing but the reception of those principles which 
God has given in the gospel of his Son can 



204 HANNAH MORE. 

essentially improve his inward or better his 
outward condition. While much, very much 
may be done to benefit and reform the institu- 
tions of society, evils still remain which admit 
of no cure, but which must be patiently borne ; 
and it is surely far more difficult to bear each 
other's burden, than to comfort with the prom- 
ise of removing them. In attempting then to 
do any permanent good to our fellows, we 
must not only relieve their distresses, but 
amend their principles ; not only promote their 
temporal welfare, but be careful for their im- 
mortal interests J not only excite their activity, 
but teach them submission; not only give them 
alms, but forgive their offences. To do this, 
you must be patient and painstaking, contin- 
uing on, yet ever forbearing. You must lay 
your account with ingratitude and improvi- 
dence, disappointment and reproach. You 
must meet evils with manliness, and exigencies 
without fear or disheartening. You are to 
expend no unavailing sympathy, to utter no 
useless complaints, to offer no affected condo- 
lence, to m.ake no false promises. Your duty 
is to labor and to wait. In order to do this, 
you must love your fellow-men because Christ 
loves them: suffer for them because he suffer- 



FALLING LEAVES. 205 

ed for them; labor for Ihem because he died 
for them.'^ 

''Practical Piety" cannot be too highly 
recommended ; it is a book for our serious 
and thoughtful moments, when we desire to 
inquire calmly and seek sincerely after that 
obedience wdiich is ''perfect and entire, w^ant- 
ing nothing." Its expression differs from relig- 
ious w^orks of a later growth ; it contains no 
fervid appeals, no exaggerated estimates, no 
startling phrases; it discourses earnestly of 
our duties and dangers as professed servants 
of God ; it deals candidly and plainly, telling 
us what we are and what we must be ; it shows 
that no superficial obedience can stand in place 
of an entire surrender of the wiiole man to the 
service of God; it allows no partial standard, 
or low estimate, or sluggish action in the 
Christian life. 

"Many are reformed," it tells us, "on 
human motives ; many are only partially re- 
formed : but those only who, as our great poet 
says, are 'reformed altogether,^ are coiwerted. 
There is no complete reformation of the con- 
duct effected without a revolution in \\\^ heart. 
Ceasing from some sins, retaining others in a 
less degree, or adopting such as are merely 



206 HANNAH MORE. 

creditable, or flying from one sin to another 
or ceasing from the external act without any 
internal change of disposition, is not Chris- 
tian reformation. The natural bias must be 
changed. The actual offence will no more bo 
pardoned than cured, if the inward corruption 
be not eradicated. To be 'alive unto God, 
through Jesus Christ,' must follow 'death unto 
sin.' There cannot be new aims and ends 
where there is not a new principle to produce 
them." 

''It is not casting a set of opinions into a 
mould and a set of duties into a system, which 
constitutes the Christian religion. The cir- 
cumference must have a centre, the body must 
have a soul, the performances must have a 
principle. Outward observances were wisely 
constituted to rouse our forgetfulness, to awa- 
ken our secular spirits, to call back our negli- 
gent hearts. They were designed to execute 
holy thoughts, to quicken us to holy deeds, but 
not to be used as equivalents to either. 

"Nothing short of a uniform and stable 
principle, that fixedness in religion which directs 
a man in all his actions, aims, and pursuits, to 
God as Ids ultimate eiid^ can give consistency 
to his character or tranquillity to his soul." 



FALLING LEAVES. 207 

In speaking of the importance of correct- 
ing small faults and cherishing the minor vir- 
tues, these making up the sum of human char- 
acter, it says, "The reason why what are 
called religious people often differ so little 
from others in small trials is, that instead of 
bringing religion to their aid in their lesser 
vexations, they either leave the disturbance to 
prey upon their minds, or apply to false reliefs 
for its removal. Those who are rendered un- 
happy by frivolous troubles, seek comfort in 
frivolous enjoyments. But we should apply 
the same remedy to ordinary trials as to great 
ones ; for as small disquietudes spring from the 
same cause as great ones, namel}^ the uncer- 
tain and imperfect condition of human nature, 
so they require the same remedy. You would 
apply to religion on the loss of your child ; 
apply to it on the loss of your temper. As 
no calamity is too great for the power of piety 
to mitigate, so none is too small to experience 
its beneficial results. Our behavior under the 
ordinary accidents of life forms a character- 
istic distinction between different classes of 
Christians : the least advanced resort to relig- 
ion on great occasions; the deeper proficient 
vesorts to it on all. 



208 HANNAH MORE. 

**An acquaintance with the nature of hu- 
man evils and of their remedy, would check 
tliat spirit of complaint which so much abounds, 
and which often makes so little difference be 
tween those who profess religion and those 
who do not. 

''If our duties are not great, they become 
important by the constant demand that is made 
for them. They have been called the 'small 
coin of human life,^ and on their perpetual and 
unobstructed circulation depends much of the 
comfort and convenience of life. How few of 
us are called to carry the gospel into distant 
lands ; but which of us is not called every day 
to adorn its doctrines by gentleness, kindness, 
and forbearance V' 

The excessive strictness of Practical Piety 
was made a matter of complaint among some 
of her religious friends. 

" The gospel is strict," was her reply ; " the 
cutting off a right hand, or the plucking out of 
a right eye, though only used as metaphors 
and illustrations, is surely more strict than any 
thing I have said. The standard of religion 
should be always kept high: the very best of 
us are always sure to pull it down a good many 
P'-'gs in our practice; but how much lower is 



FALLING LEAVES. 209 

the practice of those ^\'ho fix a lovrcr standard 
than the New Testament holds out ?" 

But cannot you write of Christianity in 
more general terms, like Addison and John- 
son, and not dwell so much on the peculiar 
doctrines of the Bible ? they said again. 

''Much as I honor and love these," an- 
swered she, "their writings would have done 
a far wider and deeper good, had they not gen- 
eralized religion so much. The soundness of 
Johnson's principles is incontestable; but he 
scarcely ever enters on any evangelical truth. 
Addison had a devout spirit; still he appears 
not to have entered into those deep views of 
evangelical truth which abound in Pascal and 
Taylor, in Leighton and Hall ; and my regret 
is, that they did not dwell more on the doc- 
trines of Christianity, and upon what distin- 
guishes it from all religious systems as a 'tclieme 
of salvation^ 

''Compare the influence of Johnson and 
Addison as moralists and Christians, cele- 
brated and world-read as they are, with Bax- 
ter and Doddridge; how do they sink into 
comparative insignificance before the pungent, 
searching, humbling teachings of believing 
men, who took the Bible as God gave it, dar- 



210 HANNAH MORE. 

ing neither to lessen nor to narrow its solemn 
and awful truths, as they stand recorded on 
its inspired pages. It is such men only who 
can meet the wants of sinful man; it is only 
such preaching and such teaching that )au 
measure the depth of human frailty and cor- 
ruption, and which can propose a remedy to 
satisfy the conscious need of the burdened, 
spirit. Men are frail and imperfect and sor- 
rowful; but they are something more, they 
are sinners, and are conscious of a weight of 
ill-desert of which no one can relieve them. 
Christian generalities may arrest the ear and 
please the reason, but they do not and they 
cannot strike the conscience, compel a man to 
stop, let go his hold on the world, and cry out 
with an earnestness never felt before, 'What 
shall I do to be saved ?' 

*'It is only the distinguishing doctrines of 
the Bible, urged by those who have felt their 
power, that can have any director permanent 
influence upon the life and conscience of others. 
Any system short of a recognition of a man's 
apostasy, his pardon and restoration through 
Jesus Christ, with the consequent fruits of a 
holy life, all the tremendous issues of which 
haug upon immediate action — any system short 



FALLING LEAVES. 211 

of tills, may it not be repeated, is inoperative 
and inefficient towards bringing men to repent- 
ance and faith, to holiness and heaven. Be- 
lievers there are all over the church of Christ 
on earth, who, nnder God, bless Doddridge 
and Baxter for the joy set before them ; while 
saints, singing the song of Moses and the 
Lamb, will be crowns of their rejoicing in the 
great day." 

It was this solemn persuasion of the essen- 
tial features of Bible truth which gave such 
power to the teaching and example of Hannah 
More — a power which offended some, but ben- 
efited more. In all her writings, and in all 
her plans for human good, her great and espe- 
cial design was to seek and to save those who 
are lost. This was her heart's desire, and it 
was this which quickened her in her long and 
wearisome journeys among the neighboring 
parishes even after the infirmities of age and 
sickness crept over the body, and gave vigor 
to her pen while the hand that held it was 
cramped with pain and benumbed by weak- 
ness. 

The earnest and heartfelt piety which 
springs from a believing reception of divine 
truth is often confounded with gloom and aus- 



212 HANNAH MORE. 

terity, and yet there is none which can give 
such cheerfulness to life, and such hope in 
death. To one who asked whether her serious 
pursuits had not destroyed her relish for pleas- 
antry, she replied, ''As you cannot see those 
who live ^vith me, you must take my testimony 
that I am neither a bigot nor a misanthrope ; 
my spirits are good, and even gay. I hope it 
is no infringement on better things to say, that 
my bite for humor and a sort of sensible non- 
sense, is not a whit diminished. A life of ill- 
health has no ways impaired my constitutional 
cheerfulness, and I am sometimes afraid that 
I take more than my share of society." 

Practical Piety was followed by Christian 
Morals, which soon passed through eleven edi- 
tions. 

But while her pen was more busy and in- 
structive than ever, the sisters were compelled 
to curtail their Sabbath labors. The Mendip 
schools, like good cliildren of a healthy stock, 
still looked well and thriving; but neither 
Hannah nor Patty were longer equal to the 
fatigue of superintending so large a field: three 
parishes only continued to share their benefac- 
tions, Shipham, Nailsea, and Cheddar their 
last as well as their first love. Here were 



FALLING LEAVES. 213 

tcaeliers who had been twenty years in their 
service, faithful and well-approved. Men and 
women, husbands and wives, and heads of 
families, from little children had grown up in 
tlie schools, and become worthy citizens and 
servants of God: many had passed through 
sickness and tribulation, having obtained a 
good report through faith, and at last died ripe 
with Christian hopes. Peace, good order, and 
industry every vvdi ere prevailed over the once 
abandoned district; friendly neighborhoods 
and happy families, thankful hearts and tidy 
hearths bore witness that the word of God is 
valuable for the life that now is, and for that 
which i to come. 

But there is sorrow in Barley Vv^ood : they 
who have comforted others, themselves need 
comfort. Mary is not. During five days of 
suffering, no murmur or complaint escaped 
her lips; she talked of "going home,'^ and 
picked out the poor men who should bear her 
to her narrow cell. The sisters gathered 
around her dying bed : it was Sabbath morning 
when she breathed her last. 

"How blessed to die on Easter Sunday,'^ 
said Hannah, "to descend to the grave when 
Jesus triumphed over it.'' 



214 HANNAH MORE. 

Twenty times a day did they visit licr cold 
remains. "I divide the morning between the 
contemplation of her serene countenance and 
my favorite Baxter's Saints' Eest," adds Han- 
nah, her tears stayed, as wath the eye of faith 
she sees the eldest, " not lost, but gone before.'' 
This was in April, 1813. 

When summer came, a journey, with its 
change of scene and air, was necessary to re- 
cruit the exhausted strength of the two youn- 
ger sisters. They w^nt into Surrey and Kent, 
drove through the environs of London, visited 
Henry Thornton, and passed a day with Wil- 
berforce, the home influences of whose quiet 
but elegant house spoke peace to many a 
guest. 

"Wliat extensive good has Mr. Wilber- 
force done among young persons of fashion, by 
the intellectual and religious intercourse of his 
family!" Miss Hannah exclaims. It was not 
only in his public acts that Wilberfcrce w^as a 
Christian ; in the bosom of his family, in his 
intercourse with his children, in the frank and 
chastened courtesy of his manners, his daily 
life commended the faith which he loved. 

"A few such hours," said she, " where in- 
quiring minds know that they shall meet with 



FALLING LEAVES. 215 

good coiiipany, in the best sense of the word, 
would, I am sure, fortify the minds and cheer 
the spirits, as well as confirm the principles of 
many. I know that many have been deterred 
from the society of religious persons by some 
want of discretion and delicacy, which they 
have been glad to magnify, in order to get 
quite out of the connection: I am, however, 
aware that all one's prudence is not sufficient 
to clear away the charge of enthusiasm which 
the world is ever watching for an occasion to 
bring forward against those who exhibit a more 
than ordinary degree of strictness; but this 
they must be contented to bear for their great 
Master, who bore so much for them.'^ 

But a great improvement was already vis- 
ible in the higher class of English society. 
''Twenty years ago,'' said Jane Porter, "while 
a child, I have cried to hear people at the 
table scoff so at religion, w^ith nobody daring 
to defend it: now such a thing would not be 
tolerated." 

An increasing seriousness and respect for 
religi(ms things were everywdiere manifest ; the 
Sabbath was more strictly observed : levity 
upon sacred truths was not only regarded 
vulgar and undignified, but frowned upon. A 



•216 n ANN AH MORS. 

Iiiglier and better tone of moral feeling per- 
vaded the public prints, and the tendency 
among all classes seemed to be upward. Ko 
small part of this change may be traced to the 
inQuence of Hannah More, whose literary fame 
preceded and opened the way for her religious 
writings. Known and admired in the most 
elegant and learned circles of the metropolis, 
it happily became the fashion to read her pro- 
ductions ; and thus her works had an entrance 
and an unconscious influence in circles other- 
wise adverse to religious reading of so decid- 
ed a character, and indeed to religious reading 
of any kind. Nor did fashion here show its 
usual fickleness: Miss More continued to be 
read and reread, published and circulated, 
with, an ever-increasing interest and improve- 
ment; nor can we ever imagine the time to 
be, when the Shepherd of Salisbury Plain 
shall not be reckoned among the most beauti- 
ful and touching illustrations of the power of 
divine grace. 

She left the mansion of Wilberforce, and 
look her way to Strawberry Hill, now the res- 
idence of Lady Yfaldegrave, where a thou- 
sand recollections of the past, partly pleasing, 
but more painful, filled her lieart. Here too 



FALLING LEAVES. 211 

Was Hampton, where for thirty years she pass- 
ed a portion of every winter with Mrs. Gar- 
rick. It had now been several years since 
they met. Of the old circle who first wel- 
(omed her to London, Mrs. Garrick alone was 
living, and she was past ninety. Miss More 
hastened to see her: she was absent; but the 
library, the lawn, the temple of Shakspeare— 
she would see all for the last time! 

'' What wit, what talents, what vivacity, 
what friendship have I enjoyed in this place, '^ 
she said. "Where are they now? I have 
been mercifully spared to see the vanity and 
emptiness of every thing that is not connected 
with eternity ; and seeing this, how heavy will 
my condemnation be, if I do not lay it to 
heart.'' 

Her frame is feeble, her step is tottering, 
her face wrinkled with age ; but within, what 
a fountain of life ! What spiritual excellency, 
what strength, vigor, and serenity, what power 
in that sinking and sickly frame ! 

The travellers returned to Barley Wood, 
?ijd in the autumn Mr. Wilberforce, with his 
wife and daughters, spent a few delightful days 
at this "favored seat of intellectual and relig- 
ious sunshine." as it was afterwards called by 

H More. 10 



218 HAXNAII MORE. 

one of the sons of this favored guest. A new 
source of interest and activity opened to the 
sisters in the formation of a Branch Bible So- 
ciety in the parish of Wrington. The great 
iliffi(?ulty in obtaining any thing like an ade- 
(juate supply of Bibles for either home or for- 
eign circulation, led to the foundation of the 
British and Foreign Bible Society as early as 
1803, in which all religions parties united alike, 
without regard to party or sect. No society 
ever had a broader or more blessed mission; 
its operations were confined to no creed or 
country: its field was the world. When a few 
used to meet in Mr. Hardcastle's counting- 
room, to consult together and prepare meas- 
ures for its formation, Wilberforce came also. 
It was planted a very little seed ; it grew up, 
and has become a goodly tree, yielding her 
fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree 
are for the healing of the nations. 

The first anniversary of the Wrington 
Branch was held on the grounds of Barley 
Wood; the spiritual climate being cold, none 
i>f the Mendip gentry opened their mansions. 
The meeting took place in the wagon-yard; 
one hundred sat down to dinner, and it being 
a fine day, the rest dined under the trees. 



FILLING LEAVES. 219 

''Some may think it would have been bet- 
ter to add £20 to our subscription," said Miss 
More to Wilberforce, "and save ourselves so 
much trouble ; but we take this trouble from 
a conviction of the contrary. The many young 
persons of fortune present, by assisting in this 
little festivity, will learn to connect the idea 
of innocent cheerfulness with that of religious 
societies, and may go and do likewise. For 
no other cause on earth \YOuld we encounter 
so much fatigue." They all enjoyed them- 
selves exceedingly, and the lawn had all the 
gayety of a public garden. 

Let us hear how Barley Wood and its mis- 
tress strike a stranger from the West. A lady 
from Massachusetts pays her a visit. '* How did 
she look?" and " What did Hannah More say ?" 
are fair questions enough. 

''Miss More was about seventy-five years 
old at the time I saw her, with an eye as brill- 
iant as a girl of eighteen, a dark hazel color, 
with a fall, matronly form of medium height. 
Her dress was of black cambric, with a plain, 
double muslin handkerchief over it, and a full- 
ruffled muslin cap. But her conversation, that 
w^as the charm — interspersed frequently with 
quotations from Scripture. When we com- 



220 HANNAH MORE. 

mended her works, and told her we thought 
great good had been done by them in Ameri- 
ca, her reply was, ' Oh, if any good has been 
done by them, if the few tinsel talents I pos- 
sess may have been made useful ! The Lord 
is sometimes pleased to employ the feeblest 
instruments in his service : do not praise me^ 
but give God the glory, it is all of him! 
You are very encouraging, and I need encour- 
agement.' 

*'Miss More said 'we might think it an 
odd speech she was about to make, but that 
we' — the clergyman and his wife who accom- 
panied me — ' could scarcely have found a day 
in many years, when they were situated as 
they were to-day. The Bristol Fair is now 
held, but we do not approve of fairs, and never 
allow our servants to go ; Bonaparte's carriage, 
however, has been a matter of great curiosity 
in this family, and one of my sisters has gone 
with four of our servants — for we dare not 
trust them alone — to gratify their innocent, 
though ridiculous curiosity, and you must re- 
ceive it as a particular mark of friendship' — at 

the same time taking Mrs. T 's hand — 'if 

we ask you to take a bit of boiled beef with 
US; but we must wait on ourselves, and if, 



FALLING LEAVES. 221 

under such circumstances, you will partake 
with us, we shall be happy to have you/ 

''On our fearing that to dirie with them 
would detain us too long, she kindly said we 
must take some refreshment. She gave us cold 
mutton sliced, with bread and butter and beer, 
all excellent. In the time it was preparing, 
we went over her cottage, which is neatly ele- 
gant, having a beautiful verandah in front, or- 
namented with a variety of flowers, and rose- 
trees in bloom, rising even to the thatched 
roof which covers this interesting dwelling. 
She showed us into a 'chamber for a friend,' 
commanding a prospect of the whole of Wring- 
ton valley, in which are situated twelve parish 
churches, and which was the birthplace of 
John Locke, to whose memory she has a monu- 
ment in her garden. Further west may be 
seen two islands in the sea, about nine miles 
from the shore, and she observed that 'their 
nearest market-town in the same direction is 
Boston; so,' said she, 'when you reach home, 
look eastward, and think of me.' 

'^'Miss More told us the place was mucli 
endeared to them, from the circumstance of 
their having planted every tree and shrub, 
and even laid the first stone for buildino; their 



222 HAI7NAH MORE. 

cottage, about thirteen years before, with their 
own hands. 

"She took us to her bedroom, which is also 
a library, and pointed out the excellences of 
almost every author as we passed them, as 
familiarly as a parent could the different traits 
of her children. Baxter and Saurin were her 
favorite authors. She admired the sublime 
words of Baxter on his death-bed : when asked 
by a friend how he was, he replied, opening 
his eyes, 'Almost well!' meaning he should 
soon be with Christ in heaven. 

''Miss More was not well enough to walk 
with us over her grounds, but on our return to 
the house we enjoyed her delightful discourse 
a little longer in the drawing-room. 

"She said much of the evils of hoarding up 
wealth, and mentioned the death of a friend 
the previous week by the name of Eenolds, 
who gave away his immense property, restrict- 
ing himself to bare necessaries. 

"'Indeed,' said she, 'an avaricious profes- 
sor of religion is an anomaly that I cannot un- 
derstand.' 

"Mr. T said it was a subject on which 

he should preach from his own pulpit, when 
he returned home. 



FALLING LEAVES. 223 

' 'Do/ said Miss More, 'and take for your 
text Out thou, man of God, flee these things, 
Tim. 4:11, and think of me.' 

*'Miss More mentioned 'good news from 
India' — that a bishop had written that lie was 
then on the sea, going to another part of his 
diocese, which was five thousand miles in ex- 
tent, and that a Brahmin of high caste was 
latelj converted entirely by his own study of 
the Scriptures — 'and yet it is said,' she re- 
marked, 'this alone is of no use' — and that he, 
with more than two hundred of his caste, were 
soon to be baptized, when he intended coming 
to Europe, to a university. 

"Her sister remarked that 'the evening be- 
fore. Lord Tinmouth and the Bishop of Glou- 
cester ha'l visited them, and that they had sat 
conversing until three o'clock in the morning, 
and all the time the words went as rapidly 
from on^: to the other as the bird of a battle- 
door.' " 

Can we not almost see the lady of the 
manor in her black cambric dress, and full 
ruffled cap? 

Meanwhile Miss More was ready to issue 
another work, an essay on the Life and Writ- 
ings of St. Paul — the first edition of which is 



224 HANNAH MORE, 

sold the first day, and she has not a single 
copy to present to her sisters. It is a true 
and beautifid portrait of this eminent apostle, 
whose writings she had studied with profound 
interest. 

Three years had scarcely passed since the 
first breach in the family circle, when Eliza- 
beth, or Betty as she was familiarly called, fol- 
lowed Mary to the final rest. 

Her loss was a serious one to the family at 
Barley Wood : no one who understands how 
many wheels there are within a wheel, which 
need to be kept in harmonious action for a 
well-regulated household, could undervalue the 
importance of her position. Beyond her home 
a large circle also mourned her loss. 

The year 1816 and thereabouts witnessed 
scarcity, depression, and murmuring among 
the English people. War had burdened the 
treasury and crippled the resources of the 
nation; nor could the proclamation of peace 
immediately restore that prosperity and well- 
ordered industry which are among her chief 
blessings. Discontent began everywhere to 
prevail; hungry men cried out for reform; 
secret assemblies were holden; unpopular 
ministers w^ere insulted ; pikes were manufao- 



FALLING LEAVES. 225 

tured ; and worse than all, the agitation and 
violence of the times were increased by the 
circulation of a fresh batch of infidel writings, 
adding fuel to the flame. The London com- 
mittees are again in motion: measures mist 
be taken to circulate throughout the veins and 
arteries of society pure blood, or the whole 
would be corrupted. Among the publications 
of the day, Miss More's tracts and songs again 
play a distinguished part. ''Will Chip'' reap- 
peared upon the stage; "Yillage Disputants,'' 
the title having been slightly altered, rapidly 
ran through ten editions. Her quiet insight 
of what was necessary, her true woman s tact, 
which serves the sex so w^ell, enabling them to 
reach just conclusions without troublesome ar- 
guments, caused a fresh demand upon her pen. 

"I did not think of turning ballad-monger 
in my old age," she says, "but the strong and 
urgent representations which I have had from 
the highest quarters of the alarming temper of 
the times, and the spirit of revolution which 
shows itself more or less in all the manufactur- 
ing towns, led me to undertake as a duty a 
task I would gladly have avoided." 

She set herself to work, and in a few weeks 
wrote a dozen penny and half-penny articles, 

30* 



226 HANNAH MORE. 

thousands and tens of thousands of which were 
circulated far and wide. 

"I fear the antidotes are not strong enough 
to expel the deeply-rooted poison,'' she says, 
"but each must do what he can.^'' 

"These are awful times, and this tempest- 
uous weather, by putting a stop to the sowing 
of corn, I fear is preparing for us another sea- 
son of scarcity. But the Lord God omnipotent 
reigneth; what consolation to be assured of 
this!" 

Miss More wrote and published and re- 
published many of her former tracts and sto- 
ries suited to the present exigencies, w^hile 
her heart w^as aching over the slow and sure 
decay of her sister Sally, whose sprightliness 
and wit still enchanted her friends. For 
months she knew there was no prospect of 
recovery, neither could any thing materially 
alleviate her disease. Her sufferings were 
sometimes intense, which drew forth the fre- 
quent exclamation, ''Poor Sally, you are in 
• dreadful pain." " I am indeed, but it is well/' 
was her calm reply. Indeed, so playful still 
was her conversation, so quiet and patient her 
temper, it was hard to believe her dying. 

While yet able to stay in the family sit- 



FALLING LEAVES. 227 

ting-room, and employ herself a little with 
her work-basket, she gave up her old seat at 
the bow-window, lest the beauties of the earth- 
ly scene might draw her away from the fre- 
quent contemplation of the heavenly. At last, 
no longer able to bear a sitting posture, she 
was assisted up stairs — for the last time, she 
well knew. Before leaving, she looked back, 
and cast a parting glance about the room : it 
was a silent and solemn farewell ; no word was 
spoken. Her sufferings rapidly increased. 
Unable to hear any connected reading, Han- 
nah and Patty repeated detached verses from 
the Bible, rn which she often joined. Once, 
having lain long insensible, a favorite text was 
recited. '' Can any thing be finer than that? 
It makes one's face shine,'' she suddenly ex- 
claimed. 

When life seemed nearly gone, her physi- 
cian took her by the hand, and bade her good 
morning. Lifting her hands in holy transport, 
she said, ''Oh for the glorious morning of the 
resurrection ! but there are some gray clouds 
])etween.''' 

*^0h the blood of Christ! He died for 
me. God was man. Talk of the cross, tlie 
precious cross, the King of love!" 



228 HANNAH MORE. 

''Four months/^ writes Hannah to Mrs. 
Kennicott, " we have watched over her in- 
creasing disease. Poor Patty and I watched 
over this bed of suffering, but our distress was 
mingled with much consolation. I cannot do 
justice to lier humility, her patience, her sub- 
mission. It was sometimes more than resig- 
nation; it was a spiritual triumph over the 
suffering of her tormented body. She often 
said, ' I have never prayed for recovery, but 
pardon. I do not fear death, but sin.' 

''My three sisters have quitted the world 
in the same order of succession as they en- 
tered it. My turn, in course, would be next. 
Pray for me, that I may do and suffer the 
whole will of God." 

A friend who visited Barley Wood after 
the last sad bereavement, writes thus of the 
remaining two sisters: "Feeling as they do 
very deeply the sad breach made in their cir- 
cle, they are wisely, cheerfully, and piously 
submissive to this appointment of Providence ; 
and neither their talents nor their vivacity are 
in the least subdued. I am disposed to be- 
lieve that they will be ])lessed to the last with 
the retention of those faculties which they 
have employed so well. With Patty I had a 



FALLING LEAVES. 229 

long and interesting conversation. This in- 
teresting woman is suffering with exemplary 
patience the greatest pain : not a murmur 
escapes her, though at night especially groans 
and cries are inevitably extorted, and the mo- 
ment after the paroxysm she is ready to resume 
with full interest and animation whatever may 
have been the subject of conversation. Han- 
nah is still herself. She took the Bev. Charles 
Forster and me to drive to Brockley Combe,- 
in the course of which her anecdotes, her wit, 
her powers of criticism, and her admirable 
talent at recitation, had ample scope." 

How serene and beautiful is the picture! 
We forget that old age and sickness are there, 
so repulsive to ^^outh, so uninteresting and un- 
attractive to busy, bustling middle life. Han- 
nah is seventy-three, and Patty an invalid; 
therefore when Sally died, who cared for the 
flowers, "The garden will be neglected; there 
is no one left to do like Sally." Ah, no ; Han- 
nah went out to meet the spring flowers; she 
gathered the roses and bound up the honey- 
suckles, ai\d the garden bloomed as sweetly as 
it used to. 



230 HANNAH MORE. 

CHAPTER XV. 

A GOLDEN HARVEST. 

Miss More sits at her desk correcting the 
fifteenth edition of Coelebs, and the eleventh of 
Practical Piety. She speaks thus: *'In spite 
of the dull task of reforming points and parti- 
cles, I found the revisal of the last especially 
a salutary and mortifying employment. How 
easy it is to be good upon paper ! I felt my- 
self humbled, even to a sense of hypocrisy, to 
observe — for I had forgotten the book — how 
very far short I had fallen of the habits and 
principles and interior sanctity which I had 
found it so easy to recommend to others. I 
hardly read a page which did not carry some 
reproach to my own heart. I frequently think 
of a line which Prior puts into the mouth of 
Solomon, 

" ' They brought my Proverbs to confute my life.* 

*' Coelebs in Search of a Wife" had now 
been before the public ten years, with a rapid 
sale both in England and the United States. 
* Never was more pain bound up in two vol- 



A GOLDEN HARVEST. 231 

umes/' she said, alluding to her illness while 
writing it. 

J)r. Henderson, the entertaining tourist of 
Iceland, found Coelebs enlivening the long even- 
ings of many a circle in that ice-bound region ; 
Swedish youths learned from it lessons of wis-* 
dom ; it was translated into French and Ger- 
man ; and may it not be hoped that young men 
and maidens, and the newly married, became 
wiser and better for having read it? 

Nor was Eussia impenetrable to her influ- 
ence. The '' Shepherd of Salisbury Plain/'' 
with "Charles the Footman," and several of 
their excellent companions, made an extensive 
circuit throughout that empire ; and she receiv- 
ed the assurance from a pious Eussian prin- 
cess, that they were opening the way for other 
works of a kindred character. 

India also reaped the benefit of her labors. 
Portions of "Moses in the Bulrushes" were 
presented to Miss More, written in Cingalese 
on the palmyra leaf, and many of her writings 
were translated both in Tamul and Cingalese. 
Sir Alexander Johnstone, Chief- Justice of 
Ceylon, on his return to England, visited Bar- 
ley Wood to assure her of the interest which 
they excited among the natives, and to be* 



232 HANNAH MORE. 

speak a poem from her gifted pen. to be sung 
on the anniversary of the abolition of domes- 
tic slavery on that island. Servitude existed 
among the Dutch settlers of Ceylon when it 
fell into the hands of the English, who at the 
lime guaranteed to all the inhabitants their 
rights of private property; nor were they 
Avilling to relinquish this among the rest, until 
Sir Alexander having secured to them some 
important privileges from the English govern- 
ment, in gratitude to him they resolved that 
all children born of their slaves after the 12th 
of August, 1816, should become free. Miss 
More' wrote a little dramatic poem, called the 
"Feast of Freedom," which was translated 
into the native language by two young priests 
then receiving an English education under the 
care of Dr. Adam Clarke, and became a great 
favorite in Ceylon. 

''What a pleasure must it afford you, my 
dear madam," wrote the Chief- Justice to the 
author, '' to have the power of producing such 
moral improvement by your writings, not 
onl}' throughout Europe, but throughout Asia 
also; for I am convinced that your writings 
have had a greater effect, and have been 
more generally read, than any other works 



A GOLDEN HARVEST. 233 

which, have been written for the last hundred 
3^ears." 

The next pilgrims to Barley Wood, Miss 
More says, "are two very interesting and sen- 
sible Persians, who have been studying the 
literature, arts, and sciences of this countrj^, 
and are returning home with great acquisitions 
of knowledge. I never saw any Asiatics be- 
fore who had energy, spirit, and curiosity: 
these are all alive. In my garden is an urn 
to the memory of Locke, who was born in our 
village. When they saw it, they exclaimed 
in rapture, ' What, Locke the metaph}' sician ?' 
They go to our different places of worship, 
attend Bible and other public meetings, and 
seem to have fewer prejudices against Chris- 
tianity than you would suppose. They par- 
ticularly admire Job and Isaiah, and those 
parts of the Old Testament which have the 
most orientalism. Their figures and costume 
are striking, their manners very genteel. I 
was amused to see the Mohammedans drink a 
little wine. The most literary of the two v/ish- 
id to have something of mine as a memento. 
] gave him Practical Piety, which he said he 
would translate when he got home.'' 

The formation and growth of the religious 



234 HANNAH MORE, 

histitutioiis ^yllicll have so distmctlv" marked 
the beghinirig of the present century, were a 
source of unspeakable gratitude to Hannah 
More ; and " I sometimes regret, foolishly 
enough," she said, "that some of my earliest 
and dearest friends did not live to promote 
and rejoice in the wonderful prosperity of 
such as each particularly delighted in. Dean 
Tucker, Dr. Kennicott, and Bishop Home 
would have been among the most zealous sup- 
porters of the conversion of the Jev/s, as Dr. 
Johnson would of the slave abolition and the 
Bible and missionary societies. Bishop Por- 
teus would have rejoiced in the prosperity of 
all. To descend to so poor a thing as myself 
and my writings, the gratification I feel in that 
measure of success which it has pleased God 
to grant unworthy me, when so many abler 
and better persons have been neglected, is 
much diminished by the loss of the above- 
named and many others, who would have tak- 
en a warmer interest in what concerned me 
than I deserved, and that from partial kind- 
ness But ail this is necessary, salutary, and 
righi.'' 

In the spring of 1818, both sisters were so 
much shattered bv sickness, that friends suj 



A GOLDEN HARVEST. 235 

peucled tlieir accustoiTied visits to Barley Wood, 
imd left the invalids to that undisturbed re- 
pose which they greatly needed. Its benefits 
upon Hannali were soon apparent ; both mind 
and body were improved, and she, under that 
abidino; sense of " doin^; with her midit," be- 
gan and prepared a small work, called ''Moral 
Sketches of Prevailing Opinions and Manners, 
Foreign and Domestic,'^ to which were added 
her "Reflections on Prayer,'^ so deservedly 
known in this country. 

The first edition sold on the first day, and 
realized fifteen thousand dollars. 

In spite of the great popularity and excel- 
lent tendency of her writings. Miss More seems 
ever to have made a low estimate of her merits, 
declaring on one occasion, that ''the only re- 
markable thing which belonged to her as an 
author was, that she had written eleven books 
after the age of sixty. '^ 

The attachment of the two surviving sisters 
was most tender and true; they had lived 
much together ; their Sunday labors had been 
equally shared ; they loved the same things, 
and in company had visited often and again 
the same places; the "sweet sense of kindred'' 
had been strengthened by the hallowed associ- 



236 HANNAH MORE. 

atioiis of a long and endeared partnership in 
every good word and work ; and now they two 
were all that v/ere left of the happy band thot 
once sported on old Stapleton Green. 

As months and years passed by, each was 
admonished that frail was her hold on life, 
and each sought to live in preparation for the 
last, summons. Miss Patty wrote in her ac- 
count-book, ''This is the last I shall ever want ;" 
and every scrap of paper in her desk bore rec- 
ord of a willing and waiting spirit: yet "she 
is eyes and hands and feet'^ to Hannah, who 
might w^ell exclaim, "How can I give thee upf ' 

The Wilberforces made a short sojourn at 
Barley Wood in the early part of September, 
1819. On the last day of their visit, Patty ac- 
companied them to dear old Cheddar, Brockley 
Combe, and among the green winding ways of 
the region, and then remained up long after 
her usual time, talking over Hannah's first in- 
troduction to London, with all her wonted ani- 
mation. It was late when she came to her 
sister's bedside to say good-night. "Our Wil- 
berforce and I have had such a nice hour's 
chat," said she cheerfully. A few hours later, 
and she awoke in the pangs of death. "Oh, 
I love my sufferings," she exclaimed; "they 



A GOLDEN HARVEST. 231 

come from God, and I love every thing wLich 
comes from him.'^ 

Whenever the mind \Yandered, the ruling 
passion, strong in death, issued its orders like 
these: ''Be sure let that old woman have her 
shoes;'" ''Do not forget the old man's clothes;" 
intent still upon those objects which had form- 
ed her chief interest and daily business of 
many years. 

"I have lost," said the stricken survivor, 
"my chief earthly comfort, companion, coun- 
sellor, and fellow-laborer. I need not tell you 
that my grief is exquisite. God doubtless saw 
that I leaned too much on this weak prop, and 
therefore in mercy withdrew it, that I might 
depend more exclusively on himself. When I 
consider hov>^ infinitely greater her gain is than 
mij loss, I am ashamed of my weakness. I can 
truly say, however, that it has not been mixed 
with one murmuring thought — I kiss the rod 
and adore the hand that employs it. I do not 
so much brood over my loss as over the many 
mercies which accompany it. I bless God that 
she was spared to me so long; that her last 
trial though sharp, was short; that she is 
spared feeling/br me what I now feel for her; 
and though I must finish my journey alone, yet 



238 HANNAH MORE. 

it is a very short portion of my pilgrimage 
which remains to be accomplished." 

'In our numerous charity schools she had 
CNCiied herself for thirty-two years with the 
m3st unwearied perseverance/'' wrote Miss 
More, ''and I may be allowed to add — now 
she is gone — with great success in training up 
numbers of useful members of the community, 
and mau}^ souls for heaven. Never was any 
private individual more lamented. Our poor 
gardener said 'she had made as many gar- 
ments for the poor as Dorcas, and had as many 
tears shed over her death-bed.' Several fu- 
neral sermons were preached for her in the 
neighborhood, and our neighbors have put on 
mourning." 

Almost every day used to come messages 
or applications to Barley Wood, from the poor 
or sick or needy of the surrounding parishes, 
in request of relief and sympathy, found al- 
ways within its friendly gates. For several 
weeks after Miss Patty's death, no one of them 
knocked at the door, or came near the house. 
A I last the schoolmaster of Shipham with his 
donkey and panniers came to receive his stated 
supply of books for the schools. "It is very 
long since we have seen any of you," said Miss 



A GOLDEN' IIARYKST. 2G0 

flaiinali. "Why, madam, tliey be so cut up, 
Ibey have not the heart to come,'' answered 
the old man mournfully. 

Letters of sympathy, affection, and con- 
dolence came in upon the mourner from all 
quarters, and friends flocked around to relieve 
by their kind offices that void which none could 
again fill. 

''Many people under a similar affliction are 
apt to say that it is of too deep a nature to ad- 
mit of consolation from the sj^rapathy of friends. 
I am not of their opinion," said this honored 
disciple; "I feel the sympathy of kind and 
Christian friends very soothing to my mind, 
and I bless God for affording me, in his mercy 
and goodness, such a source of comfort.'' 

The withered branch will not long survive : 
so thought and feared the friends who waited 
and watched around her. During the spring 
and summer of 1820, she seemed gradually 
wasting beneath the repeated and violent sciz 
urcs of her old complaint: speaking of hei 
burning fever, "Nothing but the last icy hand 
will cool me," said she. "Poor Patty, I shall 
soon join her. I hope I shall feel the same 
patience and submission as dear Patty did. I 
have great comfort and quietness in my mind." 



240 n ANN AH MORE. 

"I have never known," she said to a cleri- 
cal friend, "much of those triumphs which I 
hear of, but I have never been destitute of con- 
solation, trust, and reliance — not that unauthor- 
ized calmness which some deem to be always 
a symptom of peace to the soul." 

''You have been a blessing to the world," 
spoke one near her. 

"No, mine has been but a poor little way: 
I have done nothing, I could do nothing. The 
righteousness, mercies, and merits of Christ 
are all in all." 

"How long, Lord, how long?" she ex- 
claimed, in the extremitv of her suffering:. 

"If you need all this, madam," said one of 
her attendants, "we may be well filled with 
dismay." 

"The blood of Christ is sufficient: there is 
ao acceptance for the best without it, and with 
it the worst need not fear obtaining pardon 
and salvation upon repentance ; but it must be 
profound heart-repentance.'''' 

Months of suffering passed by, and her res- 
ignation in sorrow, her patience in sickness, 
her forgiveness of injuries, afforded an elo- 
quent commentary upon the holy doctrines 
which it was the aim of her waitings to enforce. 



A GOLDEN HARYEST. 241 

But God was graciously pleased lo raise up 
his aged servant, and restore to her a com- 
fortable measure of health. 

In the worst of her illness, Cadell wrote to 
entreat her to prepare a preface for a new 
edition of "Moral Sketches," with a short trib- 
ute to our lamented king. "My friend wrote 
him word it was utterly impossible," she re- 
lated afterwards ; "that I might as well attempt 
to fly as to write. A week after, supposing me 
to be better, he again renewed his entreaty. I 
was not better, but worse. I fancied, however, 
that what was difficult might not be impossible. 
So having got everybody out of the way, I 
furnished myself with pen, ink, and paper, 
which I concealed in my bed, and next morn- 
ing in a high fever, with my pulse above a 
hundred, without having formed one thought, 
bolstered up, I began to scribble. I got on 
about seven pages, my hand being almost as 
incompetent as my head. I hid my scrawl 
and said not a word, while my doctor and my 
friend wondered at my increased debility 
After a strong opiate, I next morning return 
ed to my task of seven pages more, and deliv- 
ered my almost illegible papers to my friend 
to transcribe and send away. I got well scold- 



243 HANNAH MORE. 

ed, but I loved the king, and was carried 
through by a sort of affectionate impulse; so 
it stands as a preface to the seventh edition. 
You will be as much surprised as ni3^self that 
his slight work should have made its way so 
rapidly in these distracted times, which the 
bookseller tells me have been the most unfa- 
vorable to literature that he has ever known. 
The preface is such a meagre performance as 
3^ou would expect from the writer, and the 
strange circumstances of the writing." 

Neither sickness nor sorrow subdued the 
wonderful elasticity of her mind, alert to the 
call of duty, and pressing into service a weak 
and suffering frame. 

Called upon to make some arrangements 
which anticipated the future, she added, "Not 
that I have the remotest idea of living through 
the winter ; but we must plan for time, and 
prepare for eternity." 

"I often think," she said one day, "that wo 
are not thankful enough for negative mercies. 
I have often felt grateful that I have never been 
nrntined in a madhouse, a prison, or a court." 

While slowly regaining strength, unable to 
endure either much company or great fatigue, 
she relieved the monoton}^ of her confinement 



A GOLDEN HARVEST. 243 

by composing "Bible Rhymes," pleasant verses 
for the young. 

''People are too apt, at an advanced age," 
she remarked, "to imagine, because they were 
able to do but little, they were exempted from 
doing any thing ; but our work is never finish- 
ed while we are on earth, and when we have 
but one talent left, we must strive to the last 
to make the most of it.'' 

"I can find sufficient employment, which, 
if not splendid, is not quite useless," she writes 
to an old friend. "At Bristol, Clifton, and 
Bath, they have an annual bazaar for the dif- 
ferent charitable societies, which, by means of 
contributions of ladies' different work, produ- 
ces a good deal of money. You will say that in 
my old age I am brought so low as to write 
half-penny papers. Every year I write some 
such trifle. The ladies who conduct the ba- 
zaars in the different places, get these paltry 
papers printed sometimes on colored papers, 
and by selling them for a shilling, £20 have 
been collected in a year. I spend all my lei- 
sure in knitting garters and muf»itees, a little 
decorated ; these, by the lady-customers giv- 
ing five times more than they are worth, bring 
in the year no contemptible sum." 



244 HANNAH MORE. 

No one perhaps ever set more value on her 
time than did Hannah More; how else could 
she have accomplished so much with the va- 
rious hinderances which sickness and society 
threw in her way? 

''What a large portion of time may be ira- 
providently squandered," she remarks; ''what 
days and nights may be suffered to waste them- 
selves, if not criminally, yet inconsiderately — 
if not loaded with evil, yet destitute of good; 
how much consumed in worthless employments, 
frivolous amusements, listless indolence, idle 
reading, and vain imaginations : and one can 
7iever make a right use of time who turns it 
over to chance, or who lives without any defi- 
nite scheme for its employment, or any fixed 
object for its end." 

Upon this subject she again speaks. 

"Through the unwearied kindness of more 
Christian friends than any other unworthy 
creature was ever blessed with, I see through 
'my loophole of retreat,' or rather hear of 
whatever interesting is going on. My conclu- 
sion is, that wickedness is wickeder than it 
used to be, and that goodness is better. Ke- 
ligion certainly has increased much amoug the 
higher classes in England, and perhaps still 



A GOLDEN HARVEST. 245 

more in Ireland. Yet I will still venture to 
say, even to the religious world, 'I have a few 
things against thee.' 

''With no small number of happy excep- 
tions, I cannot help observing the common 
fault of good people — the misappropriation of 
time. I will only instance two particulars of 
the evil, of which they do not seem to me to 
be sufficiently aware — music and light reading. 
Twenty years ago, when I wrote 'Strictures 
on Female Education,' Bishop Cleaves of St. 
Asaph was at Bath. He was much attached 
to me, though we differed on many points. 
Talking on this subject, he was so much of my 
opinion, that he wrote the following statement, 
which I inserted in a note in the first volume : 
'Suppose your pupil to begin music at six 
years of age, and to continue the average of 
four hours a day at her instrument — a very 
low calculation — Sundays excepted, till she 
is eighteen, the statement stands thus: three 
hundred days multiplied by four, the num])er 
of hours amounts to twelve hundred ; this mul- 
tiplied by twelve, which is the number of years, 
am.ounts to fourteen thousand four hundred 
hours!' 

**I come now to the reading. I pass over 



246 HANNAH MORE. 

Byron and his compeers in sin and infamy, 
though I have known some good people who 
now and then take a slice even of this highly 
seasoned corruption. I pass over the more 
loose and amatory novels, and take my stai_d 
on what is said to be safe ground, the novels 
of that unparalleled genius Walter Scott. 
Now I would not have it supposed that I have 
not read with delight and admiration all his 
poetry. This is a repast that might be taken 
with safety, though certainly not with profit, 
for it would be difficult to find another speci- 
men of such admirable works with so few 
maxims for the improvement of life and man- 
ners. Let that pass: they gratify the taste 
without vitiating the imagination; add to this, 
they were written at reasonably distant peri- 
ods from each other, so that we were refreshed 
without being crammed. We come now to his 
novels, in which his fecundity is as marvellous 
as his invention. I have read one volume and 
a half, in which the powers of his vigorous 
and versatile mind vf ere conspicuous : but from 
what I have since read in reviews, I rather 
see the absence of much evil than the presence 
of much good. I of all people ought not to 
find fault with authors for writing too much; 



A GOLDEN HARVEST. 247 

yet I must return to my first position, the mis- 
application of time. Had lie written before 
the flood, when perhaps there were not so 
many books in the world as he has introduced 
into it, all would have been well; he would 
have been a benefactor to the antediluvian 
Hilpahs and Zylpahs. A life of eight hun- 
dred years might be allowed the perusal of 
the whole of his volumes; a proportionate 
quantity in each century would have been de- 
liglitful; but for our poor scanty threescore 
years and ten, it is too much. Nay, I under- 
estimate the chronology: I believe they have 
all been produced nearly in odd ten years. 
Now I readily grant, that to the mass of read- 
ers the reading of these works should not be 
prohibited. To the gay, the worldly, and the 
dissipated, it is perhaps as safe, and even more 
safe, than any of their other pleasurable re- 
sources, being often their only intellectual one. 
The strong sense, lively exhibition of charac- 
ter, and animated style, certainly afford ali- 
ment to the mind. My remarks are limited 
to a certain class of readers, who have made 
a strict profession of religion. If indeed our 
time is to be accounted for as scrupulously as 
the other talents committed to us, how will 



248 HANNAH MORE. 

their reckoning stand ? In the case of some, it 
is almost the only talent they have. Such 
ought to be especially careful that this one be 
lightly employed, as we have an awful lesson 
on the danger of unprofitableness.'^ 

On October 22, 1822, Miss More writes to 
a friend, "I was much aifected yesterday with 
a report of the death of my ancient and val- 
ued friend Mrs. Garrick. She was in her 
hundredth year. I spent above twenty win- 
ters under her roof, and gratefully remember, 
not only their personal kindness, but my first 
introduction through them into a society re- 
markable for rank, literature, and talent." 

Behold her working for our American 
Board of Missions. 

'' A drawing of my little habitation having 
found its way to New York, they have made 
a very good engraving of it, which their Board 
of Foreign Missions is selling; and they are 
sanguine enough to expect the sale will enable 
them to build a school iu the distant island of 
Ceylon for poor girls, which they intend doing 
me the honor of calling Barley Wood.'*' A 
smile of gratification steals over her counte- 
nance. 

*' I find a good deal of time to work witb 



A GOLDEN HARVEST. 249 

my hands, while Miss Frowd reads for the en- 
tertainment of my head,^^ she adds a while 
after ; "• and i\\Q learned labors of my knitting- 
needle are now amassing to be sent to Amer- 
ica for the Barley Wood school at Ceylon ; so 
you see I am still good for something.'^ 

The history of this school is thus: the 
plan of a girl's school in Ceylon was suggested 
to a lady in Massachusetts by a letter from the 
Eev. Mr. Woodward, missionary of the Amer- 
ican Board at Ceylon, addressed to the Society 
of Inquiry at Princeton Theological Seminary, 
in which he mentioned that associations of 
ladies might be formed in America to build 
school-houses for girls, which would cost about 
thirty dollars, each school bearing the name of 
the association which supported it. 

"I had just then,'^ says the lady, "receiv- 
ed a print of Barley Wood from a relation in 
England; finding it much admired, and many 
wishing to possess a copy, I united with a 
friend, who like myself was gratuitously col- 
lecting funds for the Board, in the risk of hav- 
ing the print engraved for the benefit of for- 
eign missions. I wrote to Mr. Woodward, 
with the approbation of Mr. Evarts, that the 
avails of my part of the engraving were to be 

11* 



250 HANNAH MORE. 

appropriated to the building of a bungalow and 
the support of a girl's school within the limits 
of his missionary field, requesting him at the 
same time to select a site as nearly like Bar- 
ley Wood as could be found, and as early as 
possible to make the pupils acquainted with 
the character and works of Hannah More. 

''The school was accordingly established 
in 1823, and the house has been used also as 
a place of public worship on the Sabbath. I 
Bent copies of the engraving to Mr. Wood- 
ward and also to Miss More, who was so much 
pleased with the plan of a school in memory 
of her residence, that she immediately sent for 
its support ten pounds; the next year ten 
more ; the year following twenty, besides be- 
queathing to it at her death one hundred 
pounds, which, together with the avails of the 
engraving, formed a fund for the enlargement 
and permanent support of the school.'' 

"Barley Wood in Ceylon!" humorously 
responded an old correspondent, the oldest 
then living, Sir William Pepys, to whom she 
communicated the plan. "How this will puz- 
zle some future commentator of your works, 
who will find some obscure tradition, that for 
some reason or other — most probably he will 



A GOLDEN HARVEST. 251 

say, for the laudable purpose of disseminating 
religion — our author took this long voyage, 
and in commemoration of it, gave the name of 
her own residence to the school, which she 
evidently established in this island.'' 

Her correspondence at this time was ex- 
tensive and burdensome. ''I see a good deal 
of company," she tells us, *' but the post occu- 
pies and fatigues me more than my guests. If 
you saw my table on most days, you would 
think, were I not a minister of state, I was 
become at least a clerk in a public office. 

''The mass of books and pamphlets which 
I have from America would surprise you. I 
do not naturally love republicans ; but these 
people appear really to be making such rapid 
advances, that they seem to be determined to 
run with us the race of glory.'' 

Bishop Chase of Ohio paid her a visit in 
July of 1824, at the anniversary of the Wring- 
ton Bible Society, when with a party of seven- 
teen others he dined at Barley Wood, still 
hospitably open to numerous and admiring 
guests. The venerable hostess was unable to 
appear at table, but she received the company 
in her own apartment after dinner, where a 
long and animated conversation was kept up 



252 HANNAH MORE. 

for several hours, in which she bore a distin- 
guished part. Her powers of conversation 
even at seventy-nine were almost unrivalled ; 
so rich, so eloquent, so judicious, so appropri- 
ate. ''You could not touch her," says one, 
"without finding her electrical wit, genius, 
and godliness; her speech was always with 
wit, seasoned with grace, and ministered to 
the edifying of the hearers." 

Besides the larger appropriations demand- 
ed by her schools and the various missionary 
and charitable objects in which she took a 
deep interest, her benefactions went into hum- 
bler and more retired channels ; students were 
aided in their books and education, young 
clergymen in purchasing their libraries, and 
poor widows in eking out their scanty incomes ; 
twenty guineas, a legacy just received from 
some dignitary whose name she had never 
heard, were sent to Mrs. Judson for the re- 
demption of two little Burmah slaves; and ten 
pounds were once sent to Miss Hannah Adams 
at Boston, on receiving her history of the 
Jews, and learning that her efforts were mado 
in behalf of a widowed sister and aged fa- 
tlier." 

On the reception of one hundred poundjf 



A GOLDEN HARVEST. 253 

from the son of Sir William Pepys, who had 
for many years been in the habit of making 
her an almoner of his bounty, and at whose 
death his son thus evinced his reverence for 
his memory, her reply admits us to take, as it 
were, a parting glance at Cheddar, and a pleas- 
ant farewell of the comfort and prosperity 
which, like the green grass, is creeping around 
the Mendip Ridge. 

"I most thankfully accept the liberal sura 
you so generously offer. It is indeed most 
gratuitous on your part, and very acceptable 
on mine, as my schools consist of six hundred 
children, and the friends that used to help me 
out a little are dead. I do not know if I 
ever mentioned to my admirable correspond- 
ent that, attached to my schools, in three dif- 
ferent parishes, I instituted thirty-five years 
ago a female club for the parents of my chil- 
dren. I continue to give them an annual fes- 
tivity, when every girl bred in my schools and 
belonging to their respective clubs, if they 
have maintained a virtuous character, receives 
what they are pleased to call the bride's por- 
tion of the club-pay. This envied portion 
does not amount to a guinea : but I think it 
Las helped to promote sobriety. I have tlie 



254 HANNAH MORE. 

satisfaction to know that by petty accumula- 
tions and long perseverance, though the mem- 
bers of the club only subscribe sixpence a 
month, I shall leave these poor people possess- 
ed of nearly two thousand pounds in the threo 
parishes. I have long since placed it in the 
funds, where it is accumulating. I have put it 
in the trustees' hands. The club is now no 
further expense to me, except the annual feast, 
where my valuable companion represents me. 
Since my inability to be with them, to give it 
more credit, ten neighboring clergymen, with 
some other gentry, attend, and make tea for 
the poor women. I should not have dwelt so 
long on this subject, but as an instance of what 
persevei'ance and petty saving may accomplish. 
It explains how misers with small means grow 
rich by petty savings." 

Life has gone through its spring of hope, 
its summer work, the autumn harvest; and 
now, though winter chills are benumbing the 
limbs, within is glowing a heavenly flame, with- 
out, the friendly warmth of human kindness. 
How sweetly it leans on the unseen arm. 
•' When and whether belong to Him who gov- 
erns both worlds. I have nothing to do but 
to trust. I bless God I enjoy great tranquil- 



A GOLDEN HARVEST. 255 

lity of mind, and am willing to depart and be 
with Christ when it is his will; but I leave it 
in his hands, who does all things well," is the 
language of Hannah More, with eighty 3^ears' 
experience of the goodness and grace of Ilira 
in whom she believed. 



2;)5 HANNAH MORE. 

CHAPTER XYI. 

PASSING AWAY. 

E\' ENma shadows were fast creeping around 
the lengthened days of Hannah More. Her 
life, prolonged far beyond threescore years 
and ten, was slowly ebbing amid the fragrant 
lawns and shady groves of Barley Wood, 
when a strange and unexpected disclosure in 
her family history drove her from its bosom, 
and compelled her to find another home. 

Delicate health had almost entirely con- 
fined her to her chamber for the last seven 
years, and necessarily withdrawn her from 
household occupations ; nor could Miss Frowd, 
her daily friend and companion since Patty's 
death, be supposed to exercise any very thor 
ough inspection or strong influence over fam- 
ily servants, old in her service, and long used 
to the ways and wants of their mistress: but 
Miss More's kindness and confidence were alike 
disregarded and betrayed. Although trained 
to the practice of every Christian duty, illus- 
trated by the brightest examples of piety, 
breathing an atmosphere of purity and love. 



PASSING AWAY. 257 

and pensioners upon her bount}^, her servants 
proved false to their trust, and betrayed the 
interests of their too indulgent mistress: to 
fill their pockets, frauds, impositions, and 
thefts were for years carried on in her kitch* 
en ; her charities had been diverted from their 
appropriate channels; orders sent to traders 
w^hich were never issued ; while their midnight 
revelries began to be the scandal of the neigh- 
borhood. Miss More disregarded for a time 
the damaging hints concerning her household, 
until at length they became unmistakably con- 
firmed, and she felt that decided measures 
must be immediately taken. Two lines of con- 
duct were marked out by her counsellors: one 
an entire change in the domestic cabinet, and 
the other a removal from Barley Wood to a 
situation less cumxbered with care. After a 
short but severe struggle she chose the latter. 
The Rev. Dr. Whalley offered her his conven- 
ient and elegant house in Windsor Terrace, 
Clifton, and thither she concluded to remove. 
*'I have been quite overwhelmed by this 
heavy blow,'' she writes to Miss Roberts. *'l 
strive and pray fervently for divine support 
and direction ; but such is the variety of diffi- 
culties which await me the next month, that I 



258 HANNAH MORE. 

sink under the thought. I bless God that I 
slept last night, but, like the disciples, it was 
from sorrow : my kind partner in these suffer- 
ings, Miss Frowd, is, I am grieved to say, in 
bed with a severe cold ; this adds much to my 
distress. You must indeed, my dear friends, 
you must come and advise me. I would con- 
sult you what gentleman I shall get to stay 
with me in the dreaded moment of separation. 

''The shocking conduct of the people below 
it seems has been long the subject of discourse 
with the whole neighborhood ; I alone was left 
in ignorance through false kindness. I am 

more oblisied to dear Mr. H than I can 

say; he is a true Christian friend. I really 
think this shock has hurt my hearing and my 
memory." 

The morning of final leave-taking at length 
arrived, a cloudy April day. The servants, 
who, surmising a change, had begun to treat 
her with personal disrespect, were paid a quar- 
ter's wages in advance by their generous and 
forgiving mistress, and for ever dismissed from 
her service. 

Several gentlemen, with affectionate assi 
duity, came to support her through her last fare- 
well to Barley Wood — beloved Barley Wood, 



PASSING AWAY. 259 

whose roses and jessamines had for twenty- 
seven years breathed their fra2:rance and flun2: 
their beauty upon her daily paths — Barley 
Wood, whose walls and walks were instinct 
with the treasured memories of the past — Bar- 
ley Wood, where the sisters dwelt in the mel- 
low light of their declining days, and wdiere, 
one by one, like ripened sheaves, they had 
been gathered to the eternal harvest. 

Descending the stairs with a placid coun- 
tenance, she was led into the room below, hung 
with the portraits of friends long gone, and 
gazed upon them for a few moments in silence ; 
then hurried with tottering steps towards the 
carriage. "Ah," she sadly said, ''I am driven 
like Eve from Paradise, but not by angels." 

Her elastic and thankful spirit was not 
slow to discern the beauties of her new home, 
which commanded a bold and delightful pros- 
pect of Leigh woods and Nightingale valley, 
with the blue Avon winding between. Her 
face glowed with delight, as her dim eye lin- 
gered on the rich expanse. 

"I was always," she exclaimed, ''delighted 
with fine scenery, but my sight of late years 
has been too dim to discern the distant beau- 
ties of the vale of Wrington. It has pleased 



260 HANNAH MORE. 

Providence to ordain me in my last days a 
view no less beautiful, all the features of which 
my eye can embrace." 

Miss More's ready and gentle acquiescence 
in this providential ordering of her affairs grati- 
fied her friends, and reflected pea'ce and home- 
likeness throughout her new abode. '' Clifton is 
very pleasant," she gratefully declares ; ''few- 
er cares and more comforts." A few months 
after the settlement, she pleasantly writes to 
Wilberforce, '*I am diminishing my worldly 
cares. I have sold Barley Wood, and have 
just parted with the copyright to Cadell of those 
few of my writings which I had not sold him 
before. I have exchanged the eight 'pamper- 
ed minions' for four sober servants. I have 
greatly lessened my house expenses, which en- 
ables me to maintain my schools and enlarge 
niy charities. My schools alone, with clothing 
and rent, cost me two hundred and fifty pounds 
a year. Dear good Miss Frowd looks after 
them, though we are removed much farther 
from them. The squire of Cheddar attends 
them for almost the whole of Sunday, and 
keeps and sends me an accurate statement of 
merits and wants j so that I have many com- 
forts. 



PASSING AWAY. 261 

*■ As I have sold my carriage and horses, I 
want no coaeliman; as I have no garden, I 
want no gardener. I have two pious clergy- 
men whom I call my chaplains, and who fre- 
quently devote an evening to expound and 
pray with my family, uniformly on Saturdays. 
My most kind and skilful physician, Dr. Car- 
rick, who used to have twelve miles to come 
to me, has now not much above two hundred 
yards. As to your kind visit, we can give you 
two beds, and one for a female servant; 1 am 
sorry I can do no more. The house, though 
good, furnishes few conveniences. We have 
no servants' hall, of course no second table ; 
but we are surrounded with hotels and lodg- 
ing-houses, etc. It is delightful that we shall 
meet once more this side of Jordan. Miss 
Frowd desires her best respects. She is my 
great earthly treasure. She joins to sincere 
piety great activity and useful knowledge. 
She has the entire management of my family, 
and manages well. She reads well, and reads 
much to me. I have much more to say, and 
much, I trust, to hear, when we meet.'' 

But if Clifton released its venerable occu- 
pant from home cares, it opened the door to 
hosts of visitoi-s whose flittino:s would never 



263 HANNAH MORE. 

have extended to Wrington. Her conversa- 
tional powers still retained their brilliancy and 
freshness ; her liveliness of manner, chastened 
by time and sorrow, w^as blended with a heart- 
warming Christian love, inspiring both old and 
young with confidence and affection, while many 
were attracted towards her by the world-wide 
reputation of her writings and labors. Nearly 
four hundred visited her in the first three 
wrecks, w^hich so exhausted her strength and 
consumed her time, that two days in a week 
were set apart for general visitors, her "levee 
days" as they were called; while to her most 
intimate friends she was at all times accessible. 
One day in playful mood she sketched her 
Court at Windsor Terrace. "The Duke of 
Gloucester, Sir Thomas Acland, Sir Edmund 
Hartapp, and Mr. Harford are my sportsmen ; 
Mr. Battersby, Mr. Pigott, and Mrs. Adding- 
ton my fruiterers; Mrs. Walker Gray my 
confectioner ; Mr. Edward Brice mv fishmon- 
ger; Dr. Carrick my state physician and 
zealous friend ; Mrs. La Touche my silk mer- 
cer and clothier ; Bishop of Salisbury my oc- 
ulist; Misses Eoberts my counsellors, ?iot so- 
licitors, for they give more than they take; 
Misses David my old friends and new neigh- 



PASSING AWAY. 263 

bors; Messrs. Hensman and Elwin my spir- 
itual directors; Mr. Wilberforce my guide, 
philosopher, and friend; Miss Frowd my do- 
mestic chaplain, secretary, and house apothe- 
cary, knitter, and lamplighter, missionary to my 
numerous and learned seminaries, and without 
controversy, the queen of clubs/' in allusion to 
the village clubs already mentioned ; "Mr. Hu- 
ber my incomparable translator, who by his 
superiority puts the original out of counte- 
nance; Mr. Cadell accoucheur to the muses, 
w^ho has introduced many a sad sickly brat to 
see the light, but whispers that they must not 
depend on a long life." 

Barley Wood was sold to William Harford, 
Esq., and her business interests were so ad- 
justed that no cares were left to harass the in- 
firmities of that period when the grasshopper 
becomes a burden. 

Eepeated attacks of inflammatory disease 
in the region of the chest often brought her 
extremely low, from which, through the unre- 
mitted care and faithful attentions of Miss 
Frowd, she again and again revived, until No- 
vember of 1832, when the seizure became more 
violent, prostrating both the mind and body, 
and renderins: the remainincj; ten months of her 



2CI HANNAH MORE. 

earthly pilgrimage months of extreme weak- 
ness, of wakeful nights and restless days, un- 
alleviated by any hope of favorable change, 
except the heavenly rest. Her pious ejacula- 
tions were the utterance of a soul ripening 
for glory. 

''Grow in grace," she earnestly whispered 
to her attendants, "grow in grace, and in the 
knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ;'' "Jesus 
is all in all," " God of grace." "God of light, 
God of light, whom have I in heaven but 
thee?" "What can I do — what can I not do 
with Christ? I know that my Redeemer liv- 
eth." "Happy, happy are these, who are ex- 
pecting to meet in a better world. The thought 
of that world lifts the mind above itself. Oh 
the love of Christ, the love of Christ!" 

Long waiting, "My dear, do people ever 
die?" she said to her friend. "Oh glorious 
grave! It pleases God to affect me for my 
good, to make me humble and thankful. Lord, 
I believe, I do believe with all the powers of 
my weak, sinful heart. Lord Jesus, support 
me in that trying hour when I most need it. 
It is a glorious thing to die." 

When some one spoke of the good deeds 
which had adorned her life, she quickly re- 



PASSING AWAY. 265 

piled, ''Talk not so vainly: I niterly cast 
them from me, and fall low at the foot of the 
cross." 

Thus she waited until the 6th of Septem* 
!;er, 1833. The usual family devotions were 
attended at her bedside in the morning; her 
wasted hands were devoutly raised in prayer, 
while her countenance glowed with unwonted 
light; she lay all day quietly and speaking 
not, while a radiance as from^ the land of glory 
illumined her sunken features. In the early 
night she extended her arms, calling "Patty." 
A few more hours and she sweetly fell asleep 
in Jesus, on the dawning of the 7 th, in the 
eighty-ninth year of her age. Five days after- 
w^ards Miss More's remains were conveyed to 
Wrington, and consigned to the family vault 
by the Rev. Thomas Biddulph, Rector of St. 
James at Bristol. 

All the shops were closed, and the church- 
bells tolled their solemn requiem, as a long 
procession followed her to the grave, joined at 
its arrival at Barley Wood by large numbers 
(if the neighboring gentry, clergy, peasantry, 
and multitudes of little children. 

In the village churchyard, beneath a je\Y 
and willow, the traveller beholds a ])lain stone, 

H. Mor». 1 2 



266 HANNAH MORE. 

marking the fmal resting-place of the five good 
sisters, and bearing the simple inscription : 

"l^.EXEATH AIIE DEPOSITED THE MORTAL IlEMAINS OF 
FIVE SISTERS: 

"MARY MORE DIED 18TH OF APRIL, 1813, AGED 75 YEARS, 
ELIZABETH MORE DIED 16TH OF JUNE, 1816, AGED 76 

YEARS. 
SARAH MORE DIED 17TH OF MAY, 1817, AGED 74 YEARS. 

MARTHA MORE DIED 16TH OF SEPTEMBER, 1819, AGED 60 
YEARS. 

HANNAH MORE DIED 7TH OF SEPTEMBER, 1833, AGED 89 
YEARS. 

ALL THESE DIED IN FAITH, 

ACCEPTED IN THE BELOVED. 

HEBREWS 11:13. EPHESIANS 1 :6." 

A handsome fortune had been accumulated 
by the industry and talent of these ladies ; Miss 
Hannah More having realized from her pen 
alone, one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. 
A large portion of it was bequeathed to public 
institutions, whose fortunes and influences she 
had long followed with deep and hearty inter- 
est. Among the various items mentioned in her 
will, we find some relating to our own land. 
Diocese of Ohio, £200. Books for Ohio, £50. 
Newfoundland schools, £100. Also Barley 
Wood school, Ceylon, £100. Distressed Yau- 
dois, £180. After an enumeration of seventy- 



PASSING AWAY. 267 

one objects, to which fifty thousand dollars were 
appropriated, the remainder of her property 
was to be invested in three per cent, consols, to 
increase the endowment of the new church of 
St. Philip and Jacob, which began to be erect- 
ed in one of the destitute parishes of Bristol, 
numbering a population of sixteen thousand 
souls, hitherto without the public services of 
the gospel. It was now suggested adding a 
school to the church, which should bear her 
name, and thus commemorate her memory 
through an instrumentality which she had used 
with such eminent success — teaching the poor. 
At a meeting holden in Clifton on the October 
following, these resolutions were presented and 
adopted : 

''That the distinguished talents and quali- 
fications of the late Miss Hannah More, conse- 
crated most usefully and efficiently, throughout 
the course of a long life, to the noblest ends of 
Christian benevolence, have justly embalmed 
her memory in the public esteem and venera- 
tion. 

''That this meeting is of opinion it is de- 
sirable to convey to posterity some public me- 
morial of the sentim^ents embodied in the pre- 
ceding resolution. 



268 HANNAH MORE. 

"That a subscription be entered into for 
placing a tablet to the memory of Miss Han- 
nah More, in the parish church of Wrington, 
\^here her own remains and those of her four 
sisters are interred; and should the sum col- 
lected exceed what niay be deemed necessary 
for the proper execution of such purpose, that 
the surplus be devoted to the establishment 
of a school — to bear her name — in connection 
Avith the new church in the parish of St. Philip 
and Jacob in Bristol, towards the endowment 
of which she has bequeathed the residue of her 
estate." 

Six thousand dollars remained after the 
erection of the tablet, costing six hundred dol- 
lars, which may be seen in the parish church 
at Wrington, bearing this humble testimony to 
her worth and genius : 



PASSING AWAY. 269 

Satvci to tijc illemorg 

OF 

HANNAH MORE. 

SHE WAS BORN IN THE PARISH OF STAPLE TON, in EAR BRISTOL, 

A. U. 1715, AND DIED AT CLIFTON, SEPTEMBER 7111, A. D, 1S33. 

ENDOWED WITH GRl-xVT INTELLECTUAL POWEES, 

AND EAELY DISTINGUISHED BY THE SUCCESS 

OF HER LITERARY LABOES, 

SHE ENTERED THE WORLD UNDER CIRCUMSTANCES 

TENDING TO FIX HER AFFECTIONS ON ITS VANITIES ; 

BUT, INSTRUCTED IN THE SCHOOL OF CHRIST 

TO FORM A JUST ESTIMATE OF THE REAL END OF HUMAN EXISTENCE, 

SHE CHOSE THE BETTER PART, 

AND CONSECRATED HER TIME AND TALENTS 

TO THE GLORY OF GOD AND THE GOOD OF HER FELLOW-CREATURES, 

IN A LIFE OF PRACTICAL PIETY AND DIFFUSIVE BENEFICENCE. 

HER NUMEROUS WRITINGS IN SUPPORT OF RELIGION AND ORDER, 

AT A CRISIS WHEN BOTH AVERE RUDELY ASSAILED, 

WERE EQUALLY EDIFYING TO THE READERS OF ALL CLASSES, 

AT ONCE DELIGHTING THE WISE, 

AND INSTRUCTING THE IGNORANT AND SIMPLE. 

IN THE EIGHTY-NINTH YEAR OF HER AGE, 

BBLOVED BY HER FRIENDS, AND VENERATED BY THE PUBLIC, 

SHE CLOSED HER CAREER OF USEFULNESS 

IN HUMBLE RELIANCE ON THE MERCIES OF GOD, 

THROUGH FAITH IN THE MERITS OF HER REDEEMER. 

HER MORTAL REMAINS ARE DEPOSITED IN A VAULT IN THIS 

CHURCHYARD, WHICH ALSO CONTAINS THOSE OF HER FOUR SISTERS, 

WHO RESIDED WITH HER AT BARLEY WOOD, IN THIS PARISH, HER 

FAVORITE ABODE, AND WHO ACTIVELY COOPERATED IN HER UNWEABIKD 

ACTS OF CHRISTIAN BENEVOLENCE. 



270 HANNAH MORE. 



CONCLUSION. 

We have played with her at Slapleloii, 
studied with her at Bristol, admired her at 
London ; we have gone with her to the thought- 
ful retirement of Cowslip Green, joined the 
sisterhood at Barley Wood, visited her schools, 
heard her conversation, beheld her popularity, 
witnessed her daily life ; and now, shall w^e 
pass from the contemplation of a character 
like hers no wiser or better than before ? Are 
there no lessons of self-application in this brief 
sketch? What shall the young of our own 
day learn from the light of her shining ex- 
ample ? 

Much of the personal influence which Han- 
nah More exercised in the brilliant circles of 
literary life was undoubtedly owing to her un- 
rivalled powers of conversation, full of wit, 
sense, and originality ; to these were added a 
penetrating and sagacious mind, which, with 
its thorough knowledge of mankind, obtained 
by a large acquaintance with almost every 
class of society, enabled her to comprehend 
the dangers to w^hich the English masses were 



CONCLUSION. 2T1 

exposed, from tlie sophistries of French infi- 
delity and English demagogues, and instantly 
to seize and apply an appropriate remedy. 
Iler tracts and stories for the times are among 
her most remarkable productions, displaying 
as they do the nicest perceptions of character 
and opinion; they silenced the murmurs of 
discontent and the doubts of skepticism, and 
were like oil upon the rising waves of revolu- 
tion. 

Her first works upon the irreligious habits 
and tendencies of the higher classes in English 
society were characterized by clear and candid 
statements of the most obvious and reasonable 
requirements of Christianity — statements ut- 
tered with such discretion and truthfulness, 
that their directness could not offend, even 
where it was least welcome. They were read 
and pondered. 

As she herself came to clearer and fuller 
apprehensions of truth and duty, the nature 
and importance of her mission became more 
distinctly revealed : then followed that series 
of religious teaching, that plain and faithful 
application cf the principles of the gospel to 
the heart and life, which tended so powerfully 
to quicken the spiritual life of the church and 



272 HANNAH MORE 

elevate the standard of practical piety. Miss 
More felt the moral want of her times : these 
were general declension and coldness in the 
religious world; customs and maxims had in- 
sensibly stolen upon the church, which sullied 
its purity and diminished its influence. The 
w^ritings of Wilberforce and Hannah More, 
warmed and enriched by a living faith, infused 
new life into dead forms, and gave to the Chris- 
tian profession a quickened conscience, higher 
aims, and a holier life. 

The intellectual gifts which distinguished 
Hannah More, rich and influential as they 
were, formed not her chief excellence, nor 
that perhaps which most commends itself to 
our reverence and affection. It was her solid 
and earnest piety which imparted breadth and 
depth, strength and beauty to her character, 
and made her influence felt even to the ends 
of the earth. Herein is that with which we 
have to do. What were the elements of that 
faith which obtained so good a report, and left 
so shining an example ? 

There is a religion of taste, which admires 
the beauties of this world, and is awed by the 
grandeur of its Maker. It is inspired more by 
the book of nature than of revelation— more 



CONCLUSION. 2T3 

by the natural than the moral attributes of 
God; it seeks solitary places, and dies amid 
the din and bustle of noon-day life ; it shrinks 
from the sin and distress of the actual, and 
sighs for the good and beautiful of the ideal ; 
it yearns for the dim aisles of an old past, and 
would seek the aid of painter and sculptor to 
help it in its devotions ; it is amiable, tasteful, 
and full of reverence. Was it the religion of 
taste which moulded a character like Hannah 
More's ? 

*' I am a passionate admirer of whatever is 
beautiful in nature or exquisite in art," she 
declares. ''These are the gifts of God, but 
no part of his essence ; they proceed from 
God's goodness, and should kindle our grati- 
tude to him ; but I cannot conceive that the 
most enchanting beauties of nature, or the 
most splendid productions of the fine arts, have 
any necessary connection with religion. You 
will observe that I mean the religion of Christ, 
not that of Plato; the religion of reality, and 
not that of the beau ideal, 

"Adam sinned in a garden too beautiful 
for us to have any conception of it. The 
Israelites selected fair groves and pleasant 
mountains for the peculiar scenes of their idol- 

12* 



2T4 HANNAH MORE. 

atiy. The most exquisite pictures and statues 
have been produced in those parts of Europe 
wlicre pure religion has made the least prog- 
ress. These decorate religion, but they nei- 
I her produce nor advance it. They are the 
enjoyments and refreshments of life, and very 
compatible with true religion, but they make 
no part of it. Athens was at once the most 
learned and the most polished city in the 
world ; so devoted to the fine arts, that it is 
said to have contained more statues than men ; 
yet in this eloquent city the eloquent apostle's 
preaching made but one proselyte in the whole 
areopagus. 

''Nothing, it appears to me, can essentially 
improve the character and benefit society, but 
a savino; knowledo-e of the distinctive doctrines 
of Christianity. I mean a deep and abiding 
sense in the heart, of our fallen nature, of our 
actual and personal sinfulness, of our lost state 
but for the redemption wrought for us by Je- 
sus Christ, and of our universal necessity, and 
the conviction that this change alone can be 
effected by the influence of the Holy Spirit. 
This is not a splendid, but it is a saving relig- 
ion ; it is humbling now, that it may be ele^ 
Yatirig hereafter. It appears to me also, that 



CONCLUSION. 275 

the requisition which the Christian religion 
makes of the most highly gifted, as well as of 
the most meanly endowed, is, that after the 
heftiest and most successful exercise of the 
most brilliant talents, the favored possessor 
should lay his talents and himself at the foot 
of the cross, with the same deep self-abase- 
ment and self-renunciation as his more illiter- 
ate neighbor, and this from a conviction of 
who it is that hath made them to differ." 

Again, there is a fashionable religion, prid- 
ing itself upon orthodox doctrines, but lax 
enough in orthodox practice: it is trifling, 
irresponsible, and florid, mixed up with frivol- 
ity and worldliness ; enjoyment is the micasure 
of duty; it seeks to be pleased, not instruct- 
ed, and in the pursuit has contracted habits 
which have proved fatal snares, and imbibed 
tastes which have weakened and debased its 
principles, How^ is it rebuked by the strong 
language of earnest piety and a living faith I 

" We must avoid,'" says Hannah More, ''as 
much as in us lies, all such society^ all such 
amusements, all such tempers which it is the 
daily business of a Christian to subdue, and 
all those feelings wdiich it is his constant duty 
to suppress. Some things, which are appar- 



276 HANNAH MORE. 

ently innocent and do not assnme an alarming 
aspect or bear a dangerous character — things 
which the generality of decorous people 
affirm (how truly we know not) to be safe 
for them ; yet if we find that these things stir 
up in us improper propensities — if they awa- 
ken thoughts which ought not to be excited- 
if they abate our love for religious exercises, 
or infringe on our time for performing them — ■ 
if they make spiritual concerns appear insip- 
id — if they wind our heart a little more about 
the world — in short, if vvc have formerly found 
them injurious to our own souls, then let no 
example or persuasion, no belief of their al- 
leged innocence, no plea of their perfect safe- 
ty tempt us to indulge in them. It matters 
little to our security what they are to others. 
Our business is with ourselves. Our respon- 
sibility is on our own heads. Others cannot 
know the side on which w^e are assailable. Let 
our own unbiassed judgment determine our 
opinion, let our own experience decide for our 
own conduct. 

" As our kind of reading has much to do 
with the formation of our religious character, 
and the fostering of corrupt or correct tastes, 
we cannot forbear noticing that very prevalent 



CONCLUSION. 271 

sort of reading ^Yhich is little less productive 
of evil, little less prejadicial to moral and 
mental improvement, than that which carries a 
more formidable appearance. We cannot con- 
Ihio our censure to those more corrupt writ- 
ings which deprave tlie heart, debauch the 
imagination, and poison the principles. Of 
these the turpitude is so obvious, that no cau- 
tion on this head, it is presumed, can be nec- 
essary. But if justice forbids us to confound 
the insipid with the mischievous, the idle with 
the vicious, and the frivolous w^th the profli- 
gate, still we can only admit of shades, deep 
shades we allow, of difference. These works, 
if comparatively harmless, yet debase the 
taste, slacken the intellectual nerve, let dow^n 
the understanding, set the fancy loose, and 
send it gadding among low and mean objects. 
They not only run away with the time which 
should be given to better things, but gradually 
destroy all taste for better things. They sink 
the mind to their own standard, and give it a 
sluggish reluctance, we had almost said a moral 
incapacity for every thing above their level. 
The mind, by long habit of stooping, loses its 
erectness, and yields to its degradation. It 
becomes so low and narrow bv the littleness 



2T8 HANNAH MORE. 

of the tilings which engage it, that it requires 
a painful eftort to lift itself high enough, or to 
open itself wide enough to embrace great and 
noble objects. The appetite is vitiated. Ex- 
cess, instead of producing a surfeit, by weak- 
ening the digestion only induces a loathing for 
stronger nourishment. The faculties which 
might have been expanding in works of science, 
or soaring in the contemplation of genius, be- 
come satisfied with the impertinences of the 
most ordinary fiction, lose their relish for the 
severity of truth, the elegance of taste, and 
the soberness of religion. Lulled in the tor- 
por of repose, the intellect dozes, and enjoys 
in its waking dream, 

** AU the wild trash of sleep, without the rest. 

"In avoiding books which excite the pas- 
sions, it would seem strange to include even 
some devotional works. Yet such as merely 
kindle warm feelings are not always the safest. 
Let us rather prefer those which, while they 
tend to raise a devotional spirit, awaken the 
affections without disordering them; which, 
wdiile they elevate the desires, purify them ; 
which show us our own nature, and lay open 
its corruptions: such as show us the mallg- 



CONCLUSION. 279 

nity of sin, the deceitfulness of our hearts, the 
feebleness of our best resolutions; such as 
teach us to pull off the mask from the fairest 
appearances, and discover every hiding-place 
where some lurking evil would conceal itself ; 
such as show us not what we appear to others, 
but what we really are ; such as, cooperating 
with our interior feelings and showing us our 
natural state, point out our absolute need of a 
Eedeemer, lead us to seek to him for pardon 
from a conviction that there is no other refu2:e, 
no other salvation. Let us be conversant with 
such writings as teach us that, while we long 
to obtain the remission of our transgressions, 
we must not desire the remission of our du- 
ties.'^ 

''A life devoted to trifles," she again says, 
''not only takes away the inclination, but the 
capacity for higher pursuits. The truths of 
Christianity have scarcely more influence on a 
frivolous than on a profligate character. If 
the mind be so absorbed, not merely with what 
is vicious, but Avith v/hat is useless, as to be 
ilioroughly disinclined to the activities of a 
life of piety, it matters little what the cause is 
which so disinclines it. If these habits cannot 
be accused of great moral evil, yet it argues a 



280 HANNAH MORE. 

low state of mind, that a being who has an 
eternity at stake, can abandon itself to trivial 
pursuits. If the great concern of life cannot 
be secured without habitual watchfulness, how 
is it to be secured by habitual carelessness ? 
It will afford little comfort to the trifler, when 
at the last reckoning he gives in his long neg- 
ative catalogue, that the more ostensible oifend- 
er was worse employed. The trifler will not 
be weighed in the scale with the profligate, but 
in the balance of the sanctuary." 

Are there not many who may well take 
heed? Shall Ave be content with the ''beg- 
garly elements" of a religious profession, when 
God demands a holy life? 

Still further, earnest piety prevents that 
skepticism which is liable to creep into the soul 
at a certain stage in the religious experience, 
and which, if not expelled, chills our faith, 
until we have only a name to live. Have 
you not known many who entered upon the 
religious life with the fairest promise ? How 
lovely were the first blossoms of piety; Avhat 
prayers were offered for their fruit — wliat 
hopes were entertained of their usefulness! 
Time elapses, and alas, how is the fine gold, 
become dim ! They have lost their confi- 



CONCLUSION. 281 

deuce; tbey see no use in tbat wliereiu they 
once delighted ; their love is cold, their faith 
low, their hands feeble; they are weary, dis- 
couraged, faint-hearted. 

Why is this so ? Amid the first exercises 
of the renewed sonl, ah, there was no account 
laid with remaining corruptions within, and 
discouragements and trial from without. What 
various hinderances beset the way; what dis- 
appointments chill the heart ; what sins still 
clog the soul ! They may have learned to 
labor, but not to ivait : while planting the 
seed, ihay looked for the harvest. This forms 
the great crisis in the religious life, when in 
the waning light of our first love to God, we 
first fully comprehend all which that love de- 
mands — when the ardor of feeling is to be 
replaced by the steadfastness of principle — when 
the life that has been given us, no longer de- 
pendent upon the nurture of Christian friends, 
must henceforth depend upon ourselves: our 
watchfulness, our labors, our care must nour- 
ish it, strengthen it, and bring it to the stature 
of a perfect man in Christ Jesus. From this 
day of labor and of trial, alas, how many 
shrink! Who is sufficient for these thiugs ? 
cries the fainting; believer. 



282 HANNAH MORE. 

"1 can do all things tlirougli Christ which 
strengtheneth me," responds a living faith, 
which bears the soul through its doubts and 
fears, and teaches that hardest, last learned 
lesson, yet best of all, that in yielding a will- 
ing obedience to God, and striving to do his 
luorh, he loill work in us both to will and to do 
of his own good pleasure — Christ in man. 

This is the substance of an earnest piety — 
of a working, saving, living faith, beautifully 
and impressively illustrated in the life and 
labors of Hannah More. 

Who is striving after it? Who will go 
and do likewise ? 



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